Mechanical Analysis Of Prestressed Concrete Curved Bridges

Within the progressive expansion of urban traffic and highway, horizontally prestressed curved box girder bridges have become reliable and sustainable solutions for nowadays highway system and urban interchanges. Due to complex geometrical properties of curved bridges, prestressed concrete curved box girders are more complicated than straight bridges. Hence, more researches have been conducted for the purpose of determining a clear and good understanding of mechanical properties and behaviors of the curved bridges. The current study has also based on the engineering backgrounds of designed prestressed concrete curved box girders in order to investigate mechanical properties by modifying structural parameters when curved bridges are only subjected to static loads. Main works of this study are following:(1) The analytical and numerical approaches were reviewed for the purpose of combining curved bridge theories with finite element analysis theories.(2) The built curved bridge model was analyzed and designed by using the finite element model software called Midas Civil. It was considered its boundaries conditions which can resist on torsional deformation, through its static analysis results.(3) Based on the performance of finite element analysis, the static analysis of different bridges with variable parameters has been carried out in order to compare mechanical properties of prestressed concrete curved box girders. Results have shown that displacements and stresses of aforementioned box girders under dead loads and prestressed loads are exponentially deformed as the curved radius is changed but they are linearly deformed as the height of box girder is modified.(4) The effect of temperature on prestressed concrete curved box girders was also analyzed. The obtained results show that variation in small curved radius relatively bigger than in large curved radius bridges. However, a variation of height under temperature loads on modeled bridges has demonstrated that deformations of prestressed concrete box girders are a proportional increase or decrease to height variation.In this study, the static analysis of prestressed concrete curved box girders was carried out under different parameters. According to finite element method results, characteristics and mechanical behaviors of curved box girders can be summarized in the deformation of the curved bridge under variation of the radius is an exponential function. However, under variation of the height of box girders, it is a linear function. The study results have provided some reference for the future design of similar prestressed concrete curved box girders bridges.