Issued as an Interim Report on The Investigation of Dynamic Stresses in Highway Bridges; Project IHR-85, Illinois Cooperative Highway Research Program

An investigation of the dynamic response of three continuous highway bridges subjected to both a standard test vehicle and traffic loadings has been conducted. Comprehensive studies of bridge response under traffic loadings were made using data from over 2,700 heavy truck traffic crossings; in addition, deterministic studies of bridge behavior were made using data from son~ 130 test runs with the FHWA vehicle. The experimental data consists of the vehicle characteristics and sets of strain and deflection records for each truck describing the time-history of response at selected locations on the bridge. Systems of computer software have been developed taking advantage of recent advances in data recording and processing hardware to allow highly automated recordings, reduction and analysis of the data. A significant characteristic of the study is that the response-histories for each vehicle crossing are retained as permanent records in computer based disk or tape files. Results are presented and discussed for a limited series of tests; a comprehensive study of the results will be included in the final report of the investigation.State of Illinois Department of TransportationU.S. Department of Transportation. Federal Highway AdministrationProject IHR-8