Comparative Analysis and Evaluation of Two Prestressed Girder Bridges

A comparative analysis of two bridges constructed with the most commonly used girder types in Florida is carried out. The girder types that the bridges are employed for this study are AASHTO Type III (American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials) and Florida I-Beam. Two bridges that have exactly the same specifications but with different girder type are analyzed under baseline state and different prestress loss cases. Finite element models of these bridges are utilized, and the FE models are subjected to two types of virtual load tests of Florida legal loads namely C5 and SU4. Florida I-Beam tends to have higher load carrying capacity, higher lateral stiffness, cost efficiency and better element level reliability when compared to AASHTO Type girders.

Keywords: Florida I-Beam; AASHTO Type girder; Prestressed concrete; Load rating factor; Bridge reliability; Prestress loss; Virtual load test