Structural Engineering Commons^™

Alternate Load Paths And Retrofits For Long-Span Truss Bridges Under Sudden Member Loss And Blast Loads, Huihui Li

Dissertations and Theses

In current bridge design practices, due to the existence of alternate load paths (ALPs), continued stability and progressive collapse-resistance of long-span bridges following the initialed loss of a critical member can be attributed to “redundancy”. However, “redundancy”, also indicated as the post member failure behavior of long-span bridges is not well understood and is not explicitly considered, especially for long-span truss bridges. As one of the most famous collapse events that took place recently, collapse of the I-35W truss bridge has demonstrated the vulnerabilities of long-span truss bridges, and their societal and economic consequences under the abnormal events, such as …