Development Of A Family Of Ultra High Performance Concrete Pi Girders

Author : Mark P. Manning
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 736 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (958 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Design and Comparative Flexural Analysis of Prestressed Bridge Girders Using High Performance and Locally Developed Ultra-high Performance Concretes written by Mark P. Manning and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 736 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) is an innovative material that provides exceptional mechanical and durability properties and differs significantly from conventional concretes. Exhibiting high compressive strengths, improved environmental resistance, and increased tensile strengths and post-cracking capacity from fiber reinforcement, UHPC offers substantial advantages to a variety of structural applications by providing smaller, lighter structural members with increased design life and reduced lifecycle maintenance. Even so, widespread implementation of this unique material has been slow, particularly in the US where standardized design procedures have yet to be developed and/or adopted. Recent research at New Mexico State University (NMSU) has led to the development of unique UHPC mixture proportions. Utilizing constituents typical of precast production and primarily local to New Mexico, as well as high strength steel fiber reinforcement, these mixture proportions exhibit the advance characteristics typical of UHPC. Providing an economic alternative to commercially available products, experimental testing is required prior to implementation in local design to validate the properties and behavior of this specific UHPC when applied to structural members. This research focused on the design, production, and flexural testing of full-scale prestressed UHPC girders. Based on replacement designs of a structurally deficient local bridge superstructure, two full-scale prestressed channel girders were designed using Conspan® superstructure design software according to 2012 American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officals (AASHTO) Load Resistance Factor Design (LRFD) Bridge Design Specifications. One specimen was designed using conventional high performance concrete (HPC) typical of current New Mexico bridge design, and the second section optimized for use of the locally developed UHPC presented in this thesis. The full-scale specimens were fabricated at a local precast plant, using previously developed batching and curing procedures which were continued to be evaluated for efficiency and economy. This procedure aided in familiarizing precasters with the production of UHPC and helps to promote further implementation of UHPC in local production and design. The completed specimens were then tested in longitudinal four-point bending and transverse three-point bending to investigate flexural behavior and performance. Through comparative analyses of the full-scale prestressed specimens, evidence of the advanced characteristics and performance of UHPC versus conventional HPC are provided. Additional comparision of measured properties and behavior versus design values and predictions, recommendations are made for the incorporation of UHPC design provisions in AASHTO LRFD Bridge Design Specifications.