ANALYSIS OF RC BRIDGE DECKS FOR SELECTED NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONALSTANDARD LOADINGS USING FINITE ELEMENT METHOD

The paper presents the comparison of the effect of different standard loadings on a set of reinforced concrete bridge decks using the finite-element method. The parameters investigated include the aspect ratio (span/width) and type of loading. The investigations are conducted on two lane slab bridge decks of span 5m to 9.5m and two lane T beam bridge decks of span 7.5m to 20m. A total of 36 bridge models were analyzed. The variation of different critical structural response parameters such as deflection, longitudinal bending moment, transverse moment, shear force and torsional moments are evaluated for IRC loading (IRC Class A and 70R loadings), AASHTO loading (HL93) and Euro standard loading (LM1). The results shows that the maximum difference in deflection and longitudinal bending moment for the two IRC standard loading ranges from 5 to 15%. While the difference between corresponding values for the AASHTO loading in the range of 5 to 17%. The maximum axle load of euro standard loading is found to be 2.2 times higher than IRC class A loading maximum axle load hence the values of structural response parameters are increased by 1.7 to 1.8 times. Therefore there is a need for adopting simplified and more realistic standard loads in the future