Sandwich Plate System Bridge Deck Tests

Three series of tests were conducted on a sandwich plate bridge deck, which consisted of two steel plates and an elastomer core. The first series of testing was conducted by applying a static load on a full scale sandwich plate bridge deck panel. Local strains and deflections were measured to determine the panel's behavior under two loading conditions. Next, fatigue tests were performed on the longitudinal weld between two sandwich plate panels. Two connections were tested to 10 million cycles, one connection was tested to 5 million cycles, and one connection was tested to 100,000 cycles. The fatigue class of the weld was determined and an S-N curve was created for the longitudinal weld group. Finally, a series of experiments was performed on a half scale continuous bridge deck specimen. The maximum positive and negative flexural bending moments were calculated and the torsional properties were examined.

Finite element models were created for every load case in a given test series to predict local strains and deflections. All finite element analyses were preformed by Intelligent Engineering, Ltd. A comparison of measured values and analytical values was preformed for each test series. Most measured values were within five to ten percent of the predicted values.

Shear lag in the half scale bridge was studied, and an effective width to be used for design purposes was determined. The effective width of the half scale simple span sandwich plate bridge deck was determined to be the physical width.

Finally, supplemental research is recommended and conclusions are drawn.