Stress-Laminated Timber Bridge Decks: Non-linear Effects in Ultimate and Serviceability Limit States

Stress-laminated timber bridge decks made of glulam beams are advantageous when it comes totheir strength, production and construction costs. The thickness of a deck with a specified span andwidth is typically determined by considering requirements relating to strength and stiffnessstipulated in a design code and specifically in Europe the Eurocode 5. Linear stress calculations donot have inherent potential to simulate slip or gaps between beams, but experience from finiteelement (FE) simulations and full-scale tests shows that these nonlinear effects from slip and gaps between glulam beams exist. In this paper, comparisons between linear and non-linear FE results for two bridge decks with different spans, widths and thicknesses are made. Separate comparisonsare made in the ultimate limit state (ULS) and the serviceability limit state (SLS). It is shown that non-linear effects may be important and should be considered, especially in the case of thin decks