Structural Behaviors of a Low-Profile Steel Plate–Reinforced UHPC Deck Panel with Longitudinal Ribs

Abstract

This paper proposes a lightweight low-profile steel plate-reinforced ultrahigh-performance concrete (UHPC) deck panel with only longitudinal ribs as an alternative to traditional bridge decks for long-span bridges. The bottoms of the longitudinal ribs were reinforced with 8-mm-thick steel plates that act as flexural reinforcement, and head studs (φ13 × 180 mm) were welded to the steel plates as shear reinforcement, which can also guarantee the composite action between the steel plates and UHPC. Experimental tests were conducted to investigate the flexural and shear behaviors of the steel plate-reinforced UHPC deck panel with longitudinal ribs. According to the flexural test results, the use of 8-mm-thick steel plates could effectively control the crack propagation in UHPC, and the nominal cracking strength of the steel plate-reinforced UHPC deck specimen was 20.4 MPa, which was 90.6% higher than that of its counterpart traditional steel bar-reinforced UHPC deck panel. In addition, the shear test results indicate that the use of head studs (φ13 × 180 mm) as shear reinforcement not only could effectively control the propagation of diagonal shear cracks but also could guarantee sufficient shear resistance to avoid the shear failure for the UHPC deck specimen. Compared with the specimen with short head studs (φ13 × 40 mm), at the initiation of diagonal shear cracks, the maximum vertical shear stress in the specimen using head studs (φ13 × 180 mm) improved by 74%, and the estimated shear resistance of the specimen was 20.9% higher than required by current French standards. Thus, the aforementioned experimental investigations verified that using steel plates could enhance the crack resistance of the UHPC deck panel with longitudinal ribs, and 180-mm-high head studs could provide sufficient shear resistance in the shear zone. Currently, the proposed new UHPC deck panel has been applied to a real bridge in China, namely, the Qinglong Island Bridge.