EXPRESSWAY TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH INSTITUTE 08-06

Development of Long Span Prestressed Concrete

I Girder Bridge by Optimal Design
Young-Ha Park
*
, Chan-Min Park
**
, Tae-Song Ahn
***
,
Hai-Moon Cheong
***
, Bon-Sung Ku
****
, and Kyu-Chon Choi
*****
This study accomplished an optimal design of standard type PSC I girder bridge to enhance usability of PSC I girder bridge in
short to medium span range and to make the construction of long span PSC I girder bridge be possible, resulting in a reduction
of national construction budget.
A new fully-stressed-design procedure for the PSC I girder bridge which would identity the best section exactly in the space of
upper and lower flange widths, was formulated in this study. Using this design technique, optimal PSC I girders for several span
lengths could be designed in consistent stress optimality.
Analysis of mechanical properties of the optimal girders and a behavior verification experiment using a 60m long full scale real
girder showed that the optimal girders exhibited no engineering problems, which made many engineers concerned for long span
girders over 45m in length. Therefore, the optimal girders designed in this study can be used in the field practice immediately.
Key words : PSC I girder bridge, long span girder, optimal design
* Senior Researcher, Infrastructure Research Division (younghp@ex.co.kr)
** Chief Researcher, Infrastructure Research Division *** Head Researcher, Road Research Team
**** Senior Researcher, Infrastructure Research Division ***** Post-Doc Researcher, Infrastructure Research Division
INTRODUCTION
PSC I girder bridge is one of the bridge types constructed
most frequently in the world owing to its superiority in
economical efficiency, safety, serviceability, and durability.
Since early 2000's, several attempts have been made trying
to decrease the girder height by adding additional
prestressing forces or inserting extra structural steel into the
girder section, etc. in order to enhance the usability of PSC
I girder bridge, and some of them were successfully adopted
in the field practice.
However, the girders resulting from the efforts have some
incurring problems such as the increase in construction cost
and unsafe prestressing work process in high altitude place.
Moreover, it produces excessive camber rising after placing
of the deck slab due to the additional prestressing force.
Therefore, if there were a method which could enhance the
efficiency of the conventional PSC I girders without
producing such problems, it should be adopted in field
practice. Accordingly, this study aimed at presenting an
optimal girder, of which structural configuration is the same
as the conventional PSC I girders but its sectional area is
smaller.
Additionally, this study focussed on the design of long span
PSC I girder bridges with the span length greater than 45m
to replace existing expensive steel bridges and conventional
PSC box girder bridges with span ranges longer than 45m
in order to save our national construction budget.
FORMULATION OF FULLY STRESSED
DESIGN FOR PSC I GIRDER BRIDGE
This study formulated a fully-stressed-design method
especially for PSC I girder bridge, on which the
maximum stresses are to be the same as the allowable
stress on as many locations in the girder as possible,
so that optimal PSC I girders could be exactly
designed based on this design technique.
EXPRESSWAY TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH INSTITUTE 08-06
Optimal prestressing force and minimum
girder height
Because concrete stresses just after prestressing and at
the time of the service load application increase and
decrease, respectively, as prestressing force increases,
there are upper limit maximum prestressing forces
I
max
, I
max
, and lower limit minimum prestressing
forces I
min
and I
min
. Also, since the I
max
and
I
max
decrease and the I
min
and I
min
increase as
the girder height decreases, the minimum girder height
min
and the optimal prestressing force I
min
which
satisfy the equation below exist.
max [ I
min
(
min
), I
min
(
min
)
[
I
min
mi n [ I
max
(
min
), I
max
(
min
)
[
(2.1)
Fully stressed sections
According to girder section shape, the Eq.(2.1) can be
classified into three equations as below
I
min
(
min
) I
min
(
min
) I
min
mi n [ I
max
(
min
), I
max
(
min
)
[
(2.2)
max [ I
min
(
min
), I
min
(
min
)
[
I
min
I
max
(
min
) I
max
(
min
)
(2.3)
I
min
(
min
) I
min
(
min
) I
min
I
max
(
min
) I
max
(
min
)
(2.4)
The Eqs. (2.2) and (2.3) define prestressing force and
section shape, of which more than three maximum
stresses are the same as the allowable stresses, and Eq
(2.4) defines the prestressing force and section shape,
of which four maximum stresses are the same as the
allowable stresses.
Optimal sections in the space of upper and
lower flange widths
The thinner the web and flanges are, the greater the
structural efficiency of the girder is. Thus the
calculation of the optimal widths of upper and lower
flanges define the optimal design of PSC-I girder.
Figure 1 shows the boundary lines of regions in
which allowable stress condition functions G ,
G , G , G have zero or minus values for
PSC-I girder with the span length of 30m and design
strength of 60MPa. The four allowable stress condition
functions have the value of zero when I
max
(
min
),
I
max
(
min
), I
min
(
min
), I
min
(
min
) are equal to
I
min
.
Figure 1. Contour lines of which the allowable stress
ratio is zero (fck=60MPa, L=30m)
A
B
C
D
Q
Figure 2. Contour lines of characteristic property of
the PSC I girder
The lines

AQ and

QL are the lines on which the

Eq. (2.2) is satisfied and

CQ and

QD are for Eq.

(2.3). Since the girders belonging to these lines are
the girders in which more than three maximum stress
are same with allowable stresses, they are named as
"line of fully stressed sections" in this study. Because
at the point Q at which the four boundary lines
intersect the Eq. (2.4) is satified, the point Q is
named as "point of completely stressed section".
Figure 2 shows the contour lines of minimum girder
height, and cost index, C with the lines of

EXPRESSWAY TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH INSTITUTE 08-06
fully stressed sections. it can be seen in the figure
that the manufacturing cost is minimum at the fully
stressed section point, Q. It is ascertained that the
fully stressed design defines the minimum cost design.
It is important to notice that the section of which the
girder height is minimum among sections of same
manufacturing cost lies on the line of fully stressed
sections,

QD. The sections belonging to this line also

be the sections of minimum manufacturing cost among
the sections of same girder height.
Consequently, The fully stressed sections on

QD are
deemed to be the best design and the PSC-I girder
should be designed so as to belong to the line

QD
in the space of the lower and upper flange widths.
This study could perform correct fully stressed design
based on the formulation here excluding any errors
which would take an ineffective girder as the best
optimal design.
DESIGN OF OPTIMAL GIRDERS

Detailing of the optimal design modeling
The object of this study is to present an optimal
girder design for field practice and a sufficiently
detailed modeling of girder design was performed as
follows
(1) Because longitudinal reinforcing bars significantly
affect the girder's creep behavior and bending
strength, the longitudinal reinforcing bars were
modeled very realistically.
(2) Because if the tension forces are made equal, the
sheath diameter become always bigger than that
in the case of equal areas of tendon's sections,
tendon's section area is used as a design variable
for optimization of prestressing forces.
(3) In order not occurring of interference between
tendon's sheath and the reinforcing steel bars
while the length of region in which web thickness
is changing is sufficiently short, tendon profile in
which transverse lateral eccentricity of tendon
increases slowly and the profile moves rapidly in
the vertical plane as the profile moves from end
to center as in the figulre 3 was contrived and
adopted in design modeling.
(4) The size and minimum interval of the anchorages
according to magnitude of the prestressing force
were formulated and adopted in the design.
(5) Both the minimum and maximum friction between
tendon and shealth are adopted.
(6) The optimal prestressing forces of tendons were
evaluated in order lateral deflection not to be
occurred.
Transverse direction

(a) Tendon profile in transverse direction composed of
three parabolic lines
Vertical direction
(b) Tendon profile in vertical direction composed of a
straight line and a parabolic line
Figure 3. Tendon profiles in transverse and vertical
direction
Performing of the optimal design and the
section shapes of the optimal girders
Through a design process composed of defining
minimum thicknesses of the girder web and flanges,
evaluating and estimating the optimal section shapes,
adjusting thicknesses of the web and lower and upper
flanges, changing the number of tendons, correcting
the tendon profile, and correcting the girder end
section shape, optimal girders of the section shapes
showen in the figure 4 were obtained.
The optimal sections in the figure 4 resemble the
standard Bulb-T girder sections in USA. The optimal
girder's height is reasonable, because the typical height
of the steel bridges and PSC box girder bridges of
span range between 50m~60m is about 2.6m~3.2m.
The most important point that should be noticed is
that all the sections in the figure 4 are on the line of
fully stressed sections

QD and therefore, that they

are the optimal sections judged as to have the best
efficiency.
EXPRESSWAY TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH INSTITUTE 08-06
Expressway & Transportation Research Institute

50-5, Sanchuck-rhi, Dongtan-myun,

Hwangsung-shi, Gyeonggi-do, 445-812 Korea
TEL : +82-31-371-3332 FAX :+82-31-371-3399 younghp@ex.co.kr

Figure 4. The optimal girder section shapes designed
in this study
Performance Evaluation of the optimal girders
(1) Optimal girders were designed, of which the stress
ratio to allowable stress is constant regardless of
the span length.
(2) The flexural safety factor, F
M
o
M
M ,M , and
the shear safety factor, F
V
o
S
V ,V are 1.2
on the average. It was seen that F
M
increases
and F
V
decreases as the span length increases. is,
the larger the F
M
and the smaller the F
V

increased. That is, strength is influenced by
increasing the flange depth rather than by
increasing the girder height.
(3) Though the possibility of flexural failure from
cracking would increase as span length get longer,
longitudinal bars of 400MPa yield strength and
19mm diameter and deck slab of 35MPa strength
could make the optimal girders satisfy the design
requirement for preventing the flexural failure
from cracking.
(4) Though the girder height-span ratio of the optimal
girders are less than the existing standard girders,
the deflection due to live load was evaluated less
than 57.3 % of allowable maximum value and the
long term deflection after placement of deck slab
was also less than 1.64 times the allowable live
load deflection.
(5) The deflection ratio to span length decreases as
span increases, that is, the longer the span is, the
better the serviceability becomes.
CONCLUSIONS
This study determined optimum standard PSC I girder
bridge design that enhance the field practicability of the
short span PSC I girder bridge and make the construction
of the long span PSC I girder bridge be possible so to
reduce overall national construction budget.
Results of this study showed that the fully stressed
design method leads into exact optimal sections in the
space of upper and lower flange widths under consistent
optimum stress state regardless of the span length change.
Consequently, the optimal girders have consistent safety
with respective to flexural and shear failure and show
satisfactory serviceability for both the live load deflection
and long term deflection after deck slab placing.
The result of behavior test using the optimal girder of
60m long showed no problems which have been
concerned about by many engineers for long span
bridges over 45m. Therefore, the optimal girders
designed in this study can be considered to be
adopted to practice immediately.
REFERENCES
1. Ministry of Construction and Transportation,
"Commentary on Concrete Structural Design
Standards" (2008), Korean Society of Civil
EngineersCommittee on Essential Technology
Research for Bridge Design
2. Korea Highway Corporation, "Handbook of Road
Design Practice - Structural Engineering" 1996
3. Highway and Transportation Technology Institute,
Korea Highway Corporation, "Optimal Design and
Standardization of PSC I Girder Bridge" 20057.
FHWA, "Optimized sections for high-strength
concrete bridge girders", FHWA-RD-95-180, August
1997.