ABSTRACT
The girder bridge using steel rolled H-beams is competitive and economical for short span road bridges due to low material and fabrication costs. However, the applicable span length is only 20 m to 25 m because the maximum web height is about 900 mm. To extend the span length a new steel/concrete composite bridge was developed using the steel rolled H-beam. The new bridge form has continuous-span steel H-girders which are composite with the RC slabs to resist positive bending moments at span-center. Experiments were conducted with the partial bridge model, showing that a new SRC structural form has high bending strength and good ductile property. FEM model was developed to simulate the experiments, showing that displacements and strains obtained by FEM agreed well with test results. A design was conducted with a highway bridge model with a maximum span length of 50 m, showing that the proposed bridge satisfied the required safety and serviceability. This study showed that the proposed girder bridge was structurally rational, feasible and economical.
