Structural Engineering Commons^™

Assessment Of Bridge Pier Response To Fire, Vehicle Impact, And Air Blast, Chen Fang, Qusai Alomari, Daniel G. Linzell

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Highway bridges exposed to intentional or unintentional fire followed by combined vehicle impact and air blast are at risk of significant damage and, possibly, collapse. Limited studies examining the complex effects of these extreme demands on bridge support elements and parametrizing their response and damage are found in the open literature. Research that is presented is part of an ongoing numerical investigation examining round, multi-column, reinforced concrete (RC), bridge pier behavior subject to multi-hazard scenarios involving fire, vehicle impact, and air blast. Detailed nonlinear finite element analysis models of single columns and multi-column piers supported by a pile foundation system …

Development Of Iowa Dot Combination Bridge Separation Barrier With Bicycle Railing, Chaz M. Ginger

Department of Engineering Mechanics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The Iowa Department of Transportation typically builds separation barriers between vehicle and pedestrian/bicycle facilities when sidewalks or trails are present on vehicular bridges. Currently, Iowa DOT employs a combination bridge rail that utilizes a concrete parapet that previously had been successfully evaluated to National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 350 Test Level 4 (TL-4) criteria for these situations. While the parapet had been successfully evaluated, the combination bridge rail system as a whole had not been evaluated to any crash test standards. Iowa DOT desired that researchers at Midwest Roadside Safety Facility (MwRSF) design and test a combination bridge …

Structural Identification And Assessment Of The Inverted Tee Girder Bridge System, Garrett P. Martindale

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The Inverted Tee (IT) girder bridge system was originally developed in 1996 by the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (UNL) and Nebraska Department of Roads (NDOR) engineers. This bridge system currently accounts for over 110 bridges in Nebraska used for both state highways and local county roads. Excessive transverse and longitudinal deck cracking has been observed and noted in numerous bridge inspection reports. Since the IT girder bridge system is relatively new, limited data and knowledge exist on its structural performance and behavior. This study evaluates the IT girder bridge system by conducting twenty field observations as well as recording accelerometer time …

Dynamic Vulnerability Assessment Of Highway And Railway Bridges, Mehdi Mohseni

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Dynamic loads can cause severe damage to bridges, and lead to malfunction of transportation networks. A comprehensive understanding of the nature of the dynamic loads and the structural response of bridges can prevent undesired failures while keeping the cost-safety balance. Dissimilar to the static behavior, the dynamic response of bridges depends on several structural parameters such as material properties, damping and mode shapes. Furthermore, dynamic load characteristics can significantly change the structural response. In most cases, complexity and involvement of numerous parameters require the designer to investigate the bridge response via a massive numerical study.

This dissertation targets three main …