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Study Of Same-Lane And Inter-Lane Gvw Correlation, Colin C. Caprani, Bernard Enright, E. J. O'Brien Jul 2006

Study Of Same-Lane And Inter-Lane Gvw Correlation, Colin C. Caprani, Bernard Enright, E. J. O'Brien

Conference papers

Extensive work has been done over the last two decades on the simulation of traffic loading on bridges. The methodology used is to generate a number of years of simulated traffic and to use extreme value statistics to predict more accurately the characteristic loading for a given bridge. The parameters and probability distributions used in the Monte Carlo simulation must be based on observed sample traffic data. Some previous studies have made unsubstantiated assumptions regarding correlation between the Gross Vehicle Weights (GVW) of trucks in the same lane, or between trucks in adjacent, same direction lanes. For this paper, an …


Statistical Computation For Extreme Bridge Traffic Load Effects, Colin C. Caprani, E. J. O'Brien Jan 2006

Statistical Computation For Extreme Bridge Traffic Load Effects, Colin C. Caprani, E. J. O'Brien

Conference papers

The maintenance of highway infrastructure constitutes a major expenditure in many countries. This cost can be reduced significantly by minimizing the repair or replacement of highway bridges. In the assessment of existing bridges, the strength estimate tends to be more accurate than that of traffic loading, due to the more variable nature of loading. Recent advances in the statistical analysis of highway bridge traffic loading have resulted in more accurate forecasts of the actual loading to which a bridge is subject. While these advances require extensive numerical computation, they can significantly improve the accuracy of the calculation. This paper outlines …


Estimating Risk Of Failure Of Engineering Structures Using Predictive Likelihood, Colin C. Caprani, A. Bordallo-Ruiz, E. J. O'Brien Jan 2006

Estimating Risk Of Failure Of Engineering Structures Using Predictive Likelihood, Colin C. Caprani, A. Bordallo-Ruiz, E. J. O'Brien

Conference papers

It has been common engineering practice to define characteristic values for loading and capacity of structures in order to assess the structural capacity of existing structures. This approach, yet practical and intuitive, lead to the comparison of deterministic values (characteristic values) that had to represent all the variability of the problem and is considered to be conservative, as usually loading is overestimated and capacity underestimated, yielding to calculations with high safety margins for the extreme events. Probabilistics methods have tried to overcom e this limitation by computing the overall probability of failure (Pf) for the lifetime of the structure, taking …


Critical Loading Events For The Assessment Of Medium Span Bridges, Colin C. Caprani, S. A. Grave, E. J. O'Brien, A. J. O'Connor Jan 2002

Critical Loading Events For The Assessment Of Medium Span Bridges, Colin C. Caprani, S. A. Grave, E. J. O'Brien, A. J. O'Connor

Conference papers

This paper describes the simulation of free-flowing traffic across bridges to predict the characteristic values for bridge load effects such as bending moment and shear force. The results of these simulations are then used to demonstrate that, in predicting the characteristic extreme load effects to which a bridge may be subjected, it is not sufficient to solely model one-or two-truck presence events. It is shown that loading events involving three or more trucks may need be included in the model for short to medium spans. The critical loading events for a particular load effect are strongly dependent on the span …