Strengthening of Bridges

David Coe - Pitt and Sherry

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INTRODUCTION Understanding the load capacity of bridges should be the fundamental requirement of all road authorities. This knowledge is essential for proper management of traffic on any transport network. It is surprising how many authorities have a poor understanding of bridge load capacity and hence, by inference, little appreciation of a major risk on their road network. There is pressure for road authorities to increase legal loads of vehicles across their networks. The transportation industry has invested heavily in vehicles with increased axle mass with road friendly suspensions. While access for a number of years has been limited to designated routes, road authorities are being pressured to provide increased access so that the great economic benefits highlighted in the 1996 National Road Transport Commission report on Mass Limits Review (MLR) can be realised. Figure 1 illustrates the new vehicle loads following the MLR process.

Figure 1 Mass Limit Review Loads As a result of these needs to improve bridge management processes and to provide access to heavy axle mass vehicles, road authorities are under increasing pressure to: Determine, and further refine, the load rating of bridges Develop cost effective strengthening solutions

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LOAD RATING Following acceptance of the recommendations of the Mass Limits Review, Austroads developed Guidelines for Bridge Load Capacity Assessment, through a Bridge Assessment Group, comprising representatives from the state road authorities. These guidelines focused on assessing bridges for the live load configurations shown in Figure 1, which represented the increased axle mass vehicles. The Bridge Assessment Group collected, summarised and distributed bridge rating information and produced guidelines such as that shown in Table 1 below.

Design load

Comments

T44 bridges (1976-NAASRA Specification) MS18 bridges (1953 NAASRA Specification) Pre MS18 bridges

Bridge

< 25m spans are generally adequate except Design for some road trains > 25m spans are generally adequate except for road trains and multiple B doubles < 20m simply supported spans are generally Bridge Design adequate except for U-slab bridges without concrete overlays Review all bridges
Table 1 Bridge Rating Guidelines

This table demonstrates that, in general, many bridges constructed after 1953 should be adequate for the higher mass vehicles. However, many bridges located on low classification routes were only designed for 75% of the full design load. In 2004 the Australian Bridge Design Code was superseded by AS5100 Bridge Design, including Part 7: Rating of Existing Bridges. The methodology used to assess the load capacity of a bridge in the code is based on ensuring the same level of risk in a specific case as required for the general case. Where the Mass Limits Review process has identified understrength bridge substructures and isolated superstructure components it has generally proved to be cost effective to proceed with strengthening. Where analysis shows major superstructure elements, such as bridge girders, to be understrength the cost of practical strengthening measures is greatly increased. In these cases, the costs of undertaking further investigation and analysis, including bridge load testing is often warranted in order to obtain more refined load capacity information. It is frequently proved through load testing that a bridge has more capacity than originally calculated in a simple desk top analysis. With significant constraints on available funds, the process of assessing the priority for further investigation and strengthening needs to be aligned with the communities demands for improved level of service with regard to load capacity of designated

routes, or road hierarchies. The criteria for determining the priority of selecting structures may include: Existing load capacity of structure; Strategic heavy load route designation; Traffic intensity; Specific heavy load access requirements; Funding sources.

2 STRENGTHENING DESIGN METHODOLOGY When a structure has been identified through a desktop assessment to be understrength and is required to be capable of carrying the higher loads in accordance with the priorities described above, it is important to undertake an extensive engineering design process to achieve an optimised solution. This process should involve the following stages: i) ii) iii) The detailed structural assessment of the structures; Development of alternative concept strengthening solutions; Detailed design and documentation of the preferred solution and preparation of tender specification.

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Detailed Structural Assessment A desktop analysis that initially identifies a structure as being understrength is usually based on the existing drawings, making the same assumptions for the analysis as an engineer would make for a new design. This tends to be a conservative approach where: The elastic model is usually relatively simplistic, The material properties are based on lower bound characteristic values code based values, and Factors are adopted from the design code tend to be conservative. It is important to review where the desktop analysis is showing deficiencies and determine if further investigation will improve the understanding of the actual load capacity of a structure. It is usually warranted to undertake further detailed investigation and assessment including: Inspection of the structure to identify elements of the structure that may affect the structural performance of the bridge. For example, the barriers on a structure will often attract load and improve the capacity of a structure. Similarly, there is usually some form of fixity at a support which will frequently enhance the structural performance of a structure.

In many cases it will be difficult to identify the extent such items may contribute to the structural performance of a bridge. Depending on the areas where the structure is understrength, a load test may be warranted. It is usually worthwhile undertaking testing to better understand the properties of the material actually used in the structure, particularly for older structures By undertaking a detailed investigation, the dimensions for a structure will be better understood and it should be possible to reduce factors in the load assessment process.

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Alternative concept strengthening solutions During the design development process there needs to be a close liaison between the client and designer in order to deliver practical, cost effective solutions. As it usually impossible to close any structure for any significant period, the constraints to install any proposed strengthening work will usually drive the strengthening design solution. It is likely there will be pressure for further mass increases to be introduced in future. As a result it is advisable to assess structures for the current standard traffic design loading and the SM1600 loads specified in AS5100.2. Strengthening options should be developed based on the principle that structures should be strengthened to current standard traffic design loading as a minimum but where practical and justifiable within the funding available to Load Group B. During design development, it is advisable for the proposed strengthening measures to be reviewed by an experienced bridge construction engineer to assess potential buildability issues and also provide guidance on cost estimates, where the cost of access and labour usually far outweighs the cost of materials.

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Detailed design During the detailed design process, a thorough risk assessment should be undertaken of the proposed works. It will often be more economic to accept that some issues will need to be finally resolved during the construction work, rather than fully appraising and eliminating all risks during the design process. However, it is important for authorities to include reasonable contingencies when undertaking strengthening, or rehabilitation work. STRENGTHENING SOLUTIONS In Tasmania and Victoria there has been a campaign by road authorities to strengthen a significant number of bridges. A number of unique methods have been developed for strengthening bridge components. Methods for strengthening substructures include: External post-tensioning of pier crossheads; Widening of blade piers; Bonding of steel plates to crossheads. Infill walls between pier columns;

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Widening of pier crosshead.

For superstructures strengthening methods include: Carbon fibre strengthening; Strengthening of halving joints; Reinforced concrete U-Beam Overlay Externa l Post Tensioning Strengthening of wrought iron structures The strengthening solutions have been developed to address deficiencies identified from the detailed assessment to suit each structure and site constraints. Most of the adopted solutions have proved successful and can be transferred to bridges with similar deficiencies. The following section provides further details on the strengthening methods listed above. 3.1 3.1.1 Strengthening of Substructure Elements External post tensioning of pier crossheads At Hellyer River Bridge the hammerhead pier crosshead to the 2 span steel girder superstructure was identified to be understrength in flexure for MLR vehicles and in shear and torsion for MS1600 vehicles. The strengthening works involved external post tensioning consisting of high strength Macalloy bars stressed against prefabricated steel stressing heads located at either end of the crosshead, as shown in the Figure 2. Although located in a benign environment all steelwork, including the Macalloy bars, were coated with two coats of epoxy primer. Due to a lack of depth in the crosshead, the moment capacity could only be increased to accommodate MLR design vehicles.

Figure 2 Post Tensioned Pier Crosshead

Photograph 1 Post Tensioned Crosshead - Hellyer River Bridge . The approximate cost of the work was $57,000. The work proceeded smoothly with minimal disruption to traffic using the bridge. During post tensioning, traffic was limited to a single central lane with a 10km/hr speed restriction enforced. The as constructed strengthening on Hellyer River Bridge is shown in Photograph 1. 3.1.2 Widening of blade pier Stitt River Bridge is a 2 span steel girder structure, with a hammerhead pier. The pier crosshead, which is supported on a blade type column, was found to be understrength for MLR vehicles in flexure and shear, and failure for combined shear/torsion.

Photograph 2 Blade Pier Widening Stitt River Bridge

Photograph 2 shows the adopted strengthening solution of widening the blade pier to improve the bending and shear properties of the crosshead and also remove the problem of torsion. Dowels were grouted into the existing crosshead and pier at 300mm spacing, alternately located to both faces of the wall. The design considered concrete shrinkage effects against the existing pier, with the specification detailing requirements for casting sequences and programming. A gap was left between the top of the widening and the underside of the crosshead. After a reasonable period to allow for further shrinkage effects, the gap was filled under pressure with a non-shrink grout. The approximate cost for undertaking this work was $86,000. During construction the majority of the work was able to proceed without traffic restrictions on the bridge. Prior to grouting the traffic lane on the side of the bridge to which grouting was to occur was closed. It remained closed until the strength of the grout was 20MPa. A speed restriction of 10km/hr was applied to the open lane during this period.

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Bonding of steel plates to pier crossheads The piers to Little Forester River Bridge consist of three hexagonal concrete columns supporting an 800mm deep crosshead. The crosshead, which supports a precast concrete inverted U-beam superstructure, was identified as having inadequate shear capacity. In addition to a standard deck overlay to strengthen the superstructure, steel plates were bonded to the crosshead to increase the shear capacity for Load Group A vehicles, as shown in Photograph 3. Steel angles were fixed to the top and bottom corners of the crosshead and the vertical steel plates were fixed to the sides at regular spacing. The steelwork, which was galvanised, was fixed to the crosshead with an epoxy bonding agent. The approximate construction cost was $35,000. The bridge was closed to traffic while undertaking the remedial work as there was insufficient width to install the deck overlay by keeping one lane open to traffic. As a result a bypass was constructed and remained in place while work to the piers was carried out.

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Infill walls between columns The steel girder bridges forming the on and off ramps to the Bass Highway on the western side of the Mersey River in Devonport are relatively complex with varying span lengths, widths and skews along the length of both bridges. The piers consist of 675mm square reinforced concrete columns supporting 1050mm deep reinforced concrete crossheads. For MLR loads, the crossheads were deficient in flexure and shear.

Photograph 3 Shear Capacity Strengthening - Little Forester River Bridge

Photograph 4 Infill Walls Bass Highway Off-ramp

It was decided to strengthen the piers by constructing a new 300mm thick concrete wall between the columns. The new wall is dowelled into the existing column and pile cap to develop monolithic behaviour. The gap between the top of the infill wall and the underside of the crosshead is grouted under pressure injection after a suitable curing period. The strengthening increases the capacity of the piers to include MS 1600 loads. 3.5 Widening of pier crossheads Treehawke Creek Bridge has a precast concrete inverted U-Beam superstructure with a hammerhead pier. The pier crosshead, which is supported on a blade type column, was found to be understrength for MLR vehicles in flexure, shear and torsion.

Figure 3 Crosshead widening Treehawke Creek Bridge The bridge is located in an environmentally sensitive area with the pier being partially submerged. It was decided to strengthen the crosshead for MLR vehicles by widening to both sides in order to minimise the site disturbance, as shown in Figure 3. The widening process involved drilling and grouting dowels into the existing crosshead, preparing the existing concrete surface and casting new reinforced concrete bolsters to the side of the crosshead. The concrete mix included a super plasticiser to facilitate concrete placement and reduce shrinkage. The approximate cost of the crosshead widening works was $64,000. During construction, the Contractor proposed to anchor the dowels in epoxy mortar instead of the detail shown in Figure 3. Difficulty was experienced with fixing the reinforcement in the confined space and applying the specified bonding agent to the surface of the existing concrete crosshead with the reinforcement for the widening in position.

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Strengthening of Substructure Elements Carbon fibre strengthening Carbon fibre is being used increasingly to improve the load capacity of reinforced concrete bridge superstructures. It is predominantly used to improve the flexural capacity of beams and decks. For example, the reinforced concrete deck to the Bass Highway on-ramp on the western side of the Mersey River in Devonport was found to be deficient in sagging moment by up to 47%. Carbon fibre laminates were specified to be adhered to the underside of the deck to improve the flexural capacity of the slab by supplementing the existing steel reinforcement. The 2.0m long laminate strips span between the steel girders. The 80mm wide, 1.2mm thick strips are installed at a spacing of 650mm along the deck. Prior to installation, the substrate must be carefully prepared by patch repairing any unsound areas and removing concrete laitance. The preparation of the substrate must be verified by undertaking pull-off tests as the substrate integrity is critical to the success of the process. The structure must be closed to traffic during placement of the carbon fibre laminates and during curing of the adhesive. The curing time can be reduced by applying heat to the adhesive. The approximate construction cost for the strengthening was $150,000. As the bridge forms an integral part of the link between East and West Devonport, severe restrictions were imposed in the contract regarding when the bridge could be shut to traffic. Difficulties were experienced during construction with irregularities in the deck soffit because the as-constructed detail varied from that shown on the drawings. As a result the pull-off tests failed and it was necessary to apply an epoxy grout to the underside of the deck in order to achieve an adequate surface for adhering the carbon fibre laminates.

Photograph 5 Carbon Fibre Strengthening Bass Highway Off-ramp

Arden Street Bridge forms a critical part of Melbournes road network connecting the Central Business District to the inner suburban and industrial areas of Kensington. The bridge crosses the Moonee Ponds Creek. The 47m long, 7 span structure was constructed in 1923. It consists of an in-situ reinforced concrete deck with 5 downstand beams. Each beam is cast integrally into a reinforced concrete pier. The bridge was found to have inadequate capacity in flexure and both vertical and longitudinal shear in the regions close to and over the piers. Plastic Analysis allowing moment re-distribution at supports did not provide any significant benefits. The low rating in the region of the supports was exacerbated by reinforcement detailing which is no longer considered acceptable. A critical constraint during the development of bridge strengthening options was that there should be minimal disruption to the traffic using the bridge. In effect, this required all strengthening proposals to be installed under the bridge. It was proposed to install a folded steel plate to the underside of the deck and the side of the downstand beam. To ensure structural continuity the folded plate was epoxy bonded to the concrete substrate along with chemical anchors. The combination of the plate and the anchors provided increased capacity for both flexure and longitudinal shear over the supports. Increasing the shear capacity of the downstand beams in the vicinity of the piers was more of a problem. The use of carbon fibre strengthening for shear strengthening has been very limited, because it is very difficult to mobilise the full shear planes in the section unless the beams can be fully wrapped. On Arden Street Bridge, as the

downstand beams were cast integrally into the deck it was not possible to wrap the carbon fibre around the beam to provide the necessary anchorage lengths. Nevertheless, the folded steel plates that were proposed for strengthening the beams for flexure, provided the opportunity to fully anchor carbon fibre shear strengthening at the deck/beam interface. As a result, the carbon fibre strengthening detail shown in Figure 4 was proposed. A high modulus carbon fibre was chosen in this case, so that the minimum movement in shear would mobilize the most resistance force within the fibre, maximising the benefit to the bridge beams.

Figure 4 Arden Street Bridge Strengthening Detail Once the Contractor had thoroughly cleaned the bridge and provided access for closer inspection there was a significant crack identified at the interface between the underside of the deck and the beam, forming a structural discontinuity between the deck and the beam. For the strengthening work to be fully effective, it was essential that the continuity between the downstand beam and the reinforced concrete deck was reinstated. Extensive crack injection was undertaken along the length of the bridge to reinstate the connection between the beam and the deck.

Photograph 6 Carbon Fibre Installation Arden Street Bridge

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Strengthening of Halving Joints With increased vehicle loads, the increase in shear force at supports often causes capacity problems. For example, Mersey River bridge is a 186m long, 5 span steel composite plate girder bridge. At the piers, the girders to both spans have a halving joint, as shown in Figure 5. The analysis showed the halving joints were overstressed in the following areas for MLR vehicles: Halving joint web panel; First full depth web panel; Lower halving joint load bearing stiffener.

It was decided to strengthen the halving joints by providing: Additional web panel plating; Additional vertical intermediate web stiffeners to reduce effective panel sizes; Increased bearing stiffener thickness in the lower halving joint.

Details of the strengthening measures are shown in Figure 5. The approximate cost of the works was $170,000. The bridge forms part of the National Highway and it was required that one lane should remain open at all times. Traffic was restricted to a single 3m wide lane immediately adjacent to the kerb located on the side of the bridge away from the girder undergoing strengthening. A

speed restriction of 20km/hr was also applied immediately prior to welding commencing until 15 minutes after completion of the weld. Extensive weld inspections demonstrated the required quality of the welds was achieved even though the Contractor had difficulty slowing the traffic to 20km/hr.

Figure 5 Steel Girder Halving Joints - Mersey River Bridge 3.2.3 Reinforced Concrete U-Beam Overlay There have been a significant number of bridges constructed from precast reinforced concrete U-beams. The beams are usually bolted together, with a grouted shear key at deck level. The poor connection details between the beams means that there is very little distribution of load between the beams. As a result most U-Beam bridges do not have sufficient capacity for MLR vehicles. A common method of strengthening these bridges is to provide a reinforced concrete deck overlay, as shown in Figure 6 below. The deck overlay not only increase the structural depth of the superstructure, but provides good load distribution between the beams. It can also be seen in Figure 6, that provision of new kerbs provides an excellent opportunity to upgrade the bridge barriers as the existing barriers will rarely meet current code requirements.

Figure 6 Typical Deck Overlay Detail 3.2.4 External Post Tensioning Following the accident on the Tasman Bridge, in addition to the replacement of the damaged spans and piers, the number traffic lanes on the bridge were increased. This resulted in additional traffic loading on the outer beams, for which it had not been designed. As a result external post tensioning was provided to the outside beams to increase the structural capacity, as shown in Photograph 7 below.

Photograph 7 External Post Tensioning Tasman Bridge

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Wrought Iron Structures Strengthening of wrought iron bridges is particularly difficult and significant problems are frequently encountered including: High cost access is usually expensive and the strengthening work inherently slow and labour intensive. Material compatibility wrought iron has a laminar structure that provides high strength in the longitudinal direction but is weak in the transverse direction. Strengthening of components by means of welding is potentially dangerous. Disruption to the community any extensive strengthening proposals require prolonged lane closures and possibly closure of the bridge for considerable periods. Heritage issues developing a strengthening solution sympathetic with the heritage values of the bridge would be difficult. Princes Bridge is Melbournes grandest bridge linking the southern commercial and art centres to the commercial heart of the City. It is one of the busiest bridges in Australia servicing vehicular, trams and extensive pedestrian traffic. Built in 1888 it has significant heritage value. A desktop analysis of the bridge load capacity showed the bridge required extensive strengthening to meet current legal loads. Pitt & Sherry and Van Ek Contracting offered an alternative proposal to carry out a performance load test on the bridge with the objective undertaking a more rigorous analysis by developing a calibrated structural model to optimise strengthening requirements to meet current legal loads. The Performance Load Test involved attaching strain gauges to critical structural members to measure the response of the structure under a test vehicle, developing an elastic model in a structural analysis program, as shown in Figure 7, and modifying the parameters in the model so that it has a similar response to that measured in the actual structure in the field, refer Figure 8.

Figure 7 Elastic Model

Figure 8 Comparison of Model and Field Test Results.

The analysis using the calibrated model showed that the bridge acted in a significantly different way to the original desktop analysis and the vast majority was deemed to have adequate strength for the new design loads. As a result the strengthening work comprised predominantly of replacing wrought iron rivets with high strength bolts. It is quite common for rehabilitation work on such structures that additional work is required once access is provided and the extent of damage is understood. It was recognised there was a high risk of repair work being required once access was provided and the pigeon guano removed to allow detailed inspection of the structure and there was a reasonable contingency for the repair of these different deteriorated members. The calibrated structural model was used to determine the extent of degradation that was permissible before intervention was required. In this way the extent of repair work was optimised.

Photograph 8 Structural Repair Princes Bridge 4.0 CONCLUSIONS Following the introduction of MLR vehicles, a significant number of bridges have been identified as understrength. With limited funds available, road authorities have initiated programs of strengthening or further investigation by focussing on structures located on the strategic road network. In general it has proved more cost effective to strengthen bridge substructures and isolated superstructure components. Strengthening options have been developed based

on the principle that structures should be strengthened to current design loads, including MLR vehicles, as a minimum. In recognition of the pressure for further design load increases, where economically justifiable the strengthening measures were increased to accommodate the actions from proposed higher design loads. Pitt and Sherry has developed a number of effective strengthening solutions to suit a wide range of structural deficiencies and site constraints. The majority of the solutions have proved to be successful and will be transferred to other structures with similar deficiencies. The construction issues need to be carefully assessed for all proposed strengthening works and in particular for relatively new techniques, such as carbon fibre strengthening. In addition to the construction methodology, management of traffic on the bridges while the work is being carried out is a critical issue. 5.0 REFERENCES 1. 2. 3. NRTC, National Road Transport Commission (1996) Mass Limits Review, Report and Recommendations, Melbourne, Victoria. STANDARDS AUSTRALIA, AS5100.7 Bridge Design Rating of Existing Structures, Standards Australia, New South Wales, 2004 AUSTROADS BRIDGE ASSESSMENT GROUP, Guidelines for Bridge Load Capacity Assessment, AUSTROADS, Sydney New South Wales, 1997