Investigation of the usage of SHCC as a closure pour to reduce the construction time of widening a prestressed concrete bridge

The Netherlands is currently facing a significant challenge regarding its highway system due to the rise in traffic, especially in densely populated areas like The Randstad. However, constructing new infrastructure or replacing old bridges is not a practical solution due to environmental concerns. Most of the country's prestressed concrete...

Modelling the interface in concrete-to-concrete connections between precast girders and cast-in-situ top layers

A significant part of composite concrete viaducts was built in the 50s and 60s. This has led to an increasing need for the reassessment of the precast concrete beam bridges in the Netherlands. Many of those bridges are nowadays subjected to higher traffic loads and consequently, have a certain risk of not complying with the currently used design...

Application of Coda Wave Interferometry with embedded Smart Aggregate in a prestressed cast-in-situ concrete continuous slab bridge

In recent years, the area of structural engineering has found new interesting prospects in the theory of waves. The acoustoelastic properties of materials are utilized in a new promising structural health monitoring (SHM) technique. The propagation of ultrasonic waves through stressed elements gives the ability to find invaluable information on...

Transverse load-spread of a voided bridge deck: Comparison between a grillage model and an orthotropic plate model

Orthotropic bridges can be modelled using a grillage model and an orthotropic plate model. The grillage model has some benefits (i.e.: shorter calculation time and easier to apply pre-stressing) compared to the orthotropic plate model. However, during the Blankenburgverbinding project Ballast Nedam experienced that the transverse load-spread of...

Reliability Analysis of Railway Concrete Bridges using Expert Judgment Studies

New railway bridges for high-speed trains are being built in a many countries around the world. In addition to the construction of new bridges, existing bridges are ageing. These two factors make the assessment of railway bridges essential. The bridges are designed considering certain predefined reliability criteria to account for the...

Knowledge Model for the Parametric Design of Concrete Viaducts

The Architecture, Engineering & Construction (AEC) industry has been traditionally fragmented, with a lot of disciplines specialising in different aspects of a project and encapsulating different knowledge areas. This research project, entitled “Knowledge Model for the Parametric Design of Concrete Viaducts”, investigates the development of...

Critical Proof Load for Proof Load Testing of Concrete Bridges based on Scripted FEM Analysis

Bridges with different geometrical configurations have been searched with linear finite element analysis. The aim is to find the position and value of critical proof load. Four different parameters, namely span length, width, skewness and thickness ratio, their influence on proof load are found. In total, 166 sets of data are obtained by...