Influence of Skewness on Flexural Response of RC Slab Bridges

Abstract

Normally, straight slab bridges are preferred in any road network due to simplicity in design and construction. However, in some circumstances, it becomes necessary to provide the skew slab bridges owing to geometrical considerations. The structural behaviour of skew slab bridges differs significantly as compared to right slab bridges unless the skew angle is small. In this paper, attempts have been made to investigate the influence of skewness on flexural response of two-lane slab bridges of different spans ranging between 4 m to 8 m at in interval of 1 m and the skew angle has been varied from 0° to 45° in the multiple of 15°. In this study, the linear-elastic three-dimensional finite element analysis of slab bridges has been carried out using the STAAD_Pro. In order to investigate the effect of skewness on flexural response five different span slab bridges, the longitudinal moment, transverse moment, twisting moment, and the maximum deflection produced in skew slab bridges are normalized with the corresponding parameters in the right slab bridges. The study showed that the normalized longitudinal moment decreases significantly with the increase in angle of skew from 15° to 45°, in contrast, an excessive rise in the normalized transverse moments was observed.