Prestressed Composite Bridges with Steel Corrugated-Plate Webs

Why using steel corrugated-plate webs in a prestressed-concrete bridge? Well, there are many good reasons indeed:

• A deck that is 25-35% lighter: less concrete, reinforcement, post-tensioning and associated labor, and less expensive construction equipment.
• Enhanced flexural efficiency for additional savings in post-tensioning.
• All materials (concrete slabs, steel corrugated-plate webs, post-tensioning tendons) work with uniform stress patterns for full utilization of structural capacity.
• Minimal prestress losses in the steel webs due to the negligible axial stiffness of corrugated plates.
• Less mass for better seismic behavior.
• Thin web plates stiffened by mechanical folding for efficient use of modern high-grade steels without welded stiffeners.
• Ample geometry tolerances and simple field splicing of corrugated-plate panels subject to pure shear.
• 10-20% of the steel weight of a conventional, non-prestressed composite bridge.
• Compatibility with most construction methods for prestressed-concrete bridges: span-by-span, incremental launching, balanced cantilever construction.

In 32 pages, the eManual explores the design and construction of prestressed composite bridges with steel corrugated-plate webs. Statistical analysis of 165 bridges shows substantial gains in structural efficiency. The eManual explains state of stress in the webs, torsion-distortion interaction, and the design of the web-slab nodes for local bending and shear. It provides exhaustive coverage of local, global and interactive buckling of corrugated-plate webs, the resistance factors to use for the different buckling modes in relation to the different post-critical domains, and web crippling due to the traveling patch loads of incremental launching construction. It also explores numerous case studies and includes a comprehensive bibliography with 79 references that identify the state-of-the-art of prestressed composite bridges.

• Introduction
• Prestressed composite box girders with steel corrugated-plate webs
• State of stress in the corrugated-plate webs
• Longitudinal axial stress
• Tangential stress
• Torsion-distortion interaction
• Web-slab nodes
• Stability of corrugated-plate webs
• Local buckling
• Global buckling
• Interactive buckling
• Web crippling and yielding due to patch loading
• Resistance factors
• Design of corrugated-plate webs
• Fabrication of corrugated-plate webs
• Construction of prestressed composite box girders
• Case studies
• Symbols
• References

The eManual discusses a step-by-step procedure for the design of the plate corrugation parameters for factored (ULS) and non-factored (SLS) load combinations with a spreadsheet. The companion Excel spreadsheet calculates the factored and non-factored shear capacity of steel corrugated-plate webs with different resistance factors for global, local and interactive buckling and optimizes the plate corrugation parameters for a given plate thickness and panel depth. The use of custom resistance factors makes the spreadsheet compatible with any design standards for steel and steel-composite bridges.

E-Manual and companion spreadsheet are indispensable sources of information for bridge owners, designers and construction professionals interested in the design and construction of low-mass bridge superstructures that are less expensive, more efficient and simpler to maintain than steel multi-girder and girder-substringer systems.