ABSTRACT
This chapter presents guidelines for the design of curved highway bridges. The American association of highway and transportation officials governs the structural design of horizontally curved bridges through guide specifications for horizontally curved highway bridges. Curved structural concrete bridges have a box shape, which makes the torsional stiffness very high and thus reduces the effect of curvature on the structural design. Due to geometric complexities, the gravity load will induce torsional shear stresses, warping normal stresses, and flexural stresses to the structural components of horizontally curved bridges. In 1984, AISC Marketing, Inc. published “V-Load Analysis” for curved steel bridges. The framing system for curved I-girder bridges may follow the preliminary design of straight bridges in terms of span arrangement, girder spacing, girder depth, and cross frame types. By their nature, curved girders experience lateral deflection when subjected to gravity loading.
