Engineering Commons^™

Integrated Solar Technologies With Outdoor Pedestrian Bridge Superstructure Decking, Richard K. Racz

Masters Theses

Solar technology has been a major topic in sustainable design for many years. In the last five years, however, the solar technology industry has seen a rapid growth in installations and technological advances in cell design. Combined with a rapidly declining overall system cost, the idea of introducing solar technology into a wider range of applications is becoming a focus for engineers and scientists around the world. So many variables which alter solar energy production, such as the sun and surrounding environment, determine whether a solar design is beneficial. This thesis presents a bridge deck surface integrated with solar cells …

Field And Analytical Studies Of The First Folded Plate Girder Bridge, Man Hou Sit

Masters Theses

Integral abutment bridges are very common for short span bridges in the United State due to their less construction and maintenance cost and generally good performance. This thesis studies the first integral abutment bridge using Folded Plate Girder (FPG) Bridge System. The bridge is instrumented with a variety of gauges to capture the behavior of the bridge, and a total of two year and one month [11/2011~12/2013] of data are collected and long-term data monitoring is performed. Live load test and long term temperature effect on the bridge are studied using finite element modeling and compared with actual field data. …

New Technologies In Short Span Bridges: A Study Of Three Innovative Systems, Andrew Lahovich

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Short span bridges are commonly used throughout the United States to span small waterways and highway overpasses. New technologies in the civil engineering industry have aided in the creation of many unique designs of these short span highway bridges in efforts to decrease construction cost, decrease maintenance costs, increase efficiency, increase constructability, and increase safety. Three innovative systems, the Integral Abutment Bridge, “Bridge-in-a-Backpack”, and the Folded Plate Girder bridge will be analyzed to study how the bridges behave under various types of loading.

Detailed finite element models were created for integral abutment bridges of varying geometry. These models are used …

Historic Bridge Evaluation Using Finite Element Techniques, Helena M. Charron

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

The present study examined the application of modern, computer-based analysis methods to two existing historic bridges in Massachusetts. The first bridge featured in this study is the Woronoco Bridge, a reinforced concrete open spandrel arch bridge that was constructed in 1923. It was hoped that a computer-based, parametric study of this bridge would prove it to be deck-stiffened, similar to select bridges of Swiss engineer Robert Maillart. However, the results do not support that there was any intent to reduce bending in the arch as a result of increasing the stiffness of the bridge deck. Instead, the Woronoco Bridge appears …