Curved Bridge Decks: Analytical Strip Solution

Abstract

An “exact” solution is presented for the analysis of orthotropic curved bridge decks subjected to patch, uniform, line and concentrated loads. The bridge deck is idealized as an assemblage of radially supported curved plate elements or strips. The deflection of each plate strip is expressed as a Levy type Fourier series and the loads are expressed as a corresponding series. Concentrated loads and line loads in the tangential direction are incorporated in the solution as a discontinuity in the shear force along the load line. The convergence of this procedure is achieved by increasing the number of modes rather than the number of elements. The solution has the advantage over purely numerical or seminumerical techniques, using grid analogy or finite element techniques, in that the computational difficulties do not increase as the number of terms is increased to give increased accuracy. Tabular and graphical results are presented for bridge decks subjected to various loading conditions.