ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: More than 40% of FC girder bridges in Alberta have undergone rehabilitation. The progressive deterioration of the field grouted longitudinal shear keys eliminates the load sharing between the girders and hence subjects the girders to possible overloads. A number of rehabilitation schemes and their combinations have been designed and applied on these bridges. However, there doesn’t seem to be a consensus on a particular favourable strategy for this kind of a bridge system. To get a better understanding of the FC girder bridge behaviour and the performance of different rehabilitation schemes used in the past, a detailed finite element study was undertaken, and is being presented in this paper. The study indicated that all rehabilitation strategies improved load sharing among the girders. However, a combination of transverse prestressing and transverse steel underslung diaphragms was the best rehabilitation technique to avoid future shear key cracking.
