ABSTRACT
The most frequent causes of bridge failures in the United States are floods, collisions, overloads, and scour. Damage may occur when an over-height or oversized truck dynamically strikes a highway bridge superstructure. Over-height trucks have hit one in every five overpasses in the United States, and one-sixth of these bridges have received considerable damage and required repair. The collision could produce significant local plastic deformations of steel girders. Localized concrete spalling and tendons and steel reinforcement damage are encountered for struck prestressed concrete girders. An extensive list of highway bridges impacted by over-height, overweight, or oversized vehicles in West Virginia was developed. The authors documented the West Virginia Department of Transportation (WVDOT) process for recording damage and for deciding to repair the affected members after evaluating their remaining load-carrying capacity. Recommendations to determine the remaining capacities of damaged girders are made through either performing finite element analyses or conducting proof load testing. Repair recommendations using fiber-reinforced polymer composites are adopted for impacted prestressed concrete girders, and protocols for multiple heat-straightening repairs of damaged steel girders are implemented.
