Abstract:
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Nowadays, many different efficient solutions are being studied to solve engineering problems.
Inside this group of solutions we can find the Soil Steel Composite Bridges (SSCB) as an
alternative to traditional bridges. SSCB are being used more often every day and they are
showing themselves as competitive structures in terms of feasibility and constructability. This
project was started to achieve two different goals. The first one was to create a general
database of SSCB including few selected tests all around the world and the second one was to
compare and discuss full scale tests using the Pettersson-Sundquist design method.
To create the database and the following comparisons, twenty-five different full scale tests
were used. From this tests all the necessary information was extracted and used to create the
database.
After creating the database, the project continued with the discussion and comparison of the
full scale tests. Specifically those discussions and comparisons were related to the resistance
of the soil (the soil modulus) used in the construction of the SSCB. All the values of the
different soil modulus of each full scale test used in the comparisons were calculated using the
Swedish Design Manual (SDM). Two different types of soil modulus were calculated in this
project using SDM, ones are the soil modulus back calculated using the values reported from
the live load tests performed on the culverts and the others are theoretical soil modulus
calculated using the detailed information of the soil.
The report continues with the explanation of the different conclusions ended up with during
this project. It can be highlighted within this group of conclusions, the one related to the
importance of reporting all the necessary information from the full scale tests including the
soil parameters, the measures of the culvert, the cross sectional parameters and the vehicle
dimensions among others. Another important conclusions are the effect of using the slabs
over the top of the culvert and how it would effect to the sectional forces over the culvert and
also the limitations using method B of the SDM regarding the type of soil used as backfilling
Finally, the project finishes explaining some proposals for future research about other fields
of the study of SSCB |