ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT Diagnostic load testing is conducted in new bridges to verify that the structural behavior corresponds to the predicted by the computational model used for design. This paper presents the results of the diagnostic tests conducted in two different projects located in Quito, Ecuador. The first project is the “La Armenia 1” interchange, which consists of ten horizontally curved composite steel tub-girder bridges. The second project is “Los Pajaros” Bridge, which is a composite steel I-girder bridge with three equal spans and a total length of 195m. In both cases, dump trucks that represented between 60 to 80 percent of the nominal design load, HL-93, were applied to the bridges to induce measurable responses. The results of the case studies show that the bridges behave as predicted by the computer models for the measured deflections.
