Effect of Material Properties on Cracking in Bridge Decks

Abstract

The effect of concrete material properties on cracking in bridge decks is evaluated based on field surveys of 40 continuous steel girder bridges, representative of construction throughout the State of Kansas. Information collected from construction documents and field books is compared with observed levels of cracking to identify correlations between cracking and the variables studied. The results of the evaluation indicate that cracking in monolithic bridge decks increases with increasing values of concrete slump, percent of concrete volume occupied by water and cement, water content, cement content, and compressive strength, and decreasing values of air content (especially below 6.0%). Bridge deck overlays placed with zero slump concrete exhibit consistently higher levels of cracking than overlays with measurable slumps.