CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION
1.1 GENERAL
Bridge construction has been one of the important engagements of mankind from the earliest
days and today. It has achieved a world-wide level of importance. Bridges are one of the
most challenging of all civil engineering works. The numbers and sizes of bridges have
continuously increased in the last fifty years. Man's increasing mobility through railway and
motorized transport has caused such complex forms of bridges to be built, which has seemed
unrealistic earlier. To cope up with this demand, tremendous efforts all over the world in the
form of active research in analysis, design and construction of bridges is continuing.

Definition
A bridge is a structure which maintains the communications such as the road and
railway traffic and other moving loads over an obstacle, namely a channel, a road, a railway
or a valley. The structure is termed as a "Bridge" when it carries road and railway traffic or a
pipe line over a channel or a valley and an over bridge" when it carries the traffic or pipe
line over a communication system like roads or railways. A viaduct is also a bridge
constructed over a busy locality to carry the vehicular traffic over the area keeping the
activities of the area below the duct uninterrupted.

1.2

Components of a bridge:-

The main parts of a bridge structure are as below:

a) Decking Consisting of a slab, girders, trusses etc.
b) Bearings for the decking
c) Abutments and piers
d) Foundations for abutments and piers.

e) River training works, like revetment for slopes at abutments, aprons at bed level,
etc.
f) Approaches to the bridge to connect the bridge proper to the roads on either side and
g) Hand rails, guard stones etc.
The components above the level of bearings are grouped as superstructure, while the parts
below the bearing level are classed as sub- structure.

1.3 Structural forms of bridge decks:A bridge may be classified in many ways depending up on its function, material of
construction, form or type of superstructure, plan geometry, support conditions or span. They
are:
1) Form of construction or type of deck
2) Plan- geometry or plan form
3) Support conditions

Over the years, a number of methods of analysis of bridge superstructures have been evolved
and are being used. Courbon's method, Hendry Jaeger method and Morice and Little methods
are some of the methods which have been in use since long, and are still popular, as they are
found to be easy, amenable to design graphs and also reasonably accurate for bridge decks of
simple configurations. But these methods are being gradually replaced where computer
facilities are available or more accurate analysis is desired or the cross section and/or layouts
of the bridge decks are complex.

Following the advent of digital computers, computer-aided methods like Finite Element,
Finite Difference and Finite Strip have been developed and are in use to analyze intricate
forms of skew, curved, bifurcated and arbitrary shapes of bridges having usual support
conditions and cross sections. But these methods are highly numerical and always carry a
heavy cost-penalty.

Grillage Analogy is probably one of the most popular computer-aided methods for analyzing
bridge decks. The method consists of representing the actual decking system of the bridge by
an equivalent grillage of beams. The dispersed bending and torsional stiffness of the decking
system are assumed, for the purpose of analysis, to be concentrated in these beams. The
stiffnesses of the beams are chosen so that the prototype bridge deck and the equivalent
grillage of beams are subjected to identical deformations under loading. The actual deck
loading is replaced by an equivalent nodal loading. The method is applicable to bridge decks
with simple as well as complex configurations with almost the same ease and confidence.
The method is easy to comprehend and use. The analysis is relatively inexpensive and has
been proved to be reliably accurate for a wide variety of bridges. The grillage representation
helps in giving the designer a feel of the structural behavior of the bridge and the manner in
which loading is distributed and eventually taken to the supports.

As the present topic is concerned essentially with the analysis of highway bridge decks and
hence the main factors which govern and influence the choice of analytical technique, too be
discussed, are only identified.

Although there is a wide choice in classification but the description will be limited to only
those types of bridges which can be gainfully handled by employing the method of grillage
analogy.

1.3.1 Form of construction

Broadly the forms of construction can be divided into

(a) Slab Decks

(i) Solid slab deck
(ii) Voided slab deck
(iii) Pseudo slab deck

(b) Slab on girder deck

(i) T beam
(ii) I beam

(c) Box girder bridges

(i) Single box girder
(ii) Multi-cell box girder
(iii) Single cell trapezoidal box girder

(a) Slab decks:-

The slab deck behaves like a flat plate, which is a structural continuum for
transferring moments, shears and torsion in all directions in the plane of the plate. Based on
support conditions the slab deforms. Normally in a bridge deck two sides will be supported
on bearings over piers and the remaining two sides will be either free or stiffened by edge
beams corresponding to elastic supports.
The slab deforms locally in the form of a dish causing two dimensional moments, which
share the load from the deck. The deformation is a function of the stiffness of the slab in the
corresponding direction. Concrete slab decks are normally used for span up to 10m. For
higher spans the required thickness of the slab becomes large and accordingly the self weight
becomes large.
A Slab is isotropic when its stiffness is the same in all directions in the plane of the slab. It
is orthotropic when the stiffnesses are different in two directions at right angles.

Slab decks can conveniently be analyzed using the computer grillage analysis.

Fig.1.1: Solid slab

(b) Slabon-Girders Bridge:-

Slab on girders bridges are by far the most commonly adopted type in the span range of 10
to 50 m. The majority of beam and slab decks have number of beams spanning longitudinally
between abutments with a thin slab spanning transversely across the top.
4

T beam bridges are one of the most common examples under this category and are very
popular because of their simple geometry, low fabrication cost, easy erection or casting and
smaller dead loads.
Usually I section or T section is used for the beam. But T section is found to be more
efficient. T beams are economical where depth of section is not a controlling factor from
head room considerations. The T beam bridge superstructure may consist of girders and slab
or girders, slab and diaphragms at the supports or girders, slab, intermediate cross beams and
diaphragms. However, T-beam Bridge with cross beam extending into and cast
monolithically with the deck slab is found to be more efficient and is recommended for
adoption. Simply supported RC T beam is normally adopted for spans up to 25m. Span to
depth ratio is generally kept in between 12 and 15 for continuous spans. Higher ratios are
possible but riding qualities are affected by creep characteristics of concrete.

(c)Box-Girder Bridge

Now a days, single or multi cell reinforced and pre-stressed concrete box girder
bridge have been widely used as economic and aesthetic solutions for over crossing, under
crossing, separation structures and viaducts found in todays modern highway systems. The
main advantage of this type of bridges lies in the high torsional rigidity available because of
closed box section and convenience in varying the depth along the span.
In the span range of 20-30m, cast in situ multi cell reinforced concrete box girder bridges are
used. The span depth ratio of RC box girder bridges is generally adopted as 16 for simple
spans and 18 for continuous spans.

1.4 Plan Geometry or Plan Forms:The horizontal and vertical alignments of a bridge are governed by the Geometrics of
highway, roadway or channel it crosses. A bridge may be either be right or skew, straight or
curved or any combination thereof.

1.5 Support Configurations:The simple supports are common with slab bridges or with slab-on-girders bridges of
smaller spans. Cantilever and Balanced cantilever bridges are constructed for span range of
35 to 60 m having T-beam or box-girder as their cross-section. Fully continuous bridges are
advantageous for spans over 35m and are suitable with pre-stressed concrete girders.

Further, the bridge may be placed on rigid supports or flexible (yielding) supports. The
conventional plate, rocker or rocker-cum-roller bearings provide rigid supports. However, the
recent trend is to favor

elastomeric bearings. This provides yielding supports. These are

preferred because of their low height and low cost and require practically no maintenance.
Also, they are easy to replace. These bearings can cope up with complex deformations of
skew and curved geometry.

1.6 OBJECTIVES OF STUDY:

The aim of this project is to know the advantage of Limit state method of design over
the Working stress method of design for T beam girder bridge of span 10m,15m,20m when
all other parameters during the construction are assumed to be same for both methods.