Laying ballastless track on railway bridges has the advantages of reducing the train noise problem, improving passenger comfort, and reducing track maintenance costs. Therefore, railway bridges with ballastless track have gradually turned into a major trend in railway systems all over the world. In Taiwan, railway bridges with ballastless track have been in use for many years, with ballastless ...

This presentation describes the concepts involved in design and construction of a reinforcement-free bridge deck intended to provide cost effective, durable and more rapid construction for highway bridges. The new wide flanged or bulb tee precast prestressed concrete girder sections currently used in bridges allow for a shorter effective span for the bridge deck because of the wide girder flang...

The mission of the Bridge Engineering Center is to conduct research on bridge technologies to help bridge designers/owners design, build, and maintain long-lasting bridges. The contents of this report refl ect the views of the authors, who are responsible for the facts and the accuracy of the information presented herein. The opinions, fi ndings and conclusions expressed in this publication are...

Bridge deck inspection is essential task to monitor the health of the bridges. This paper reports the data collection and analysis for bridge decks based on our novel robotic system which can autonomously and accurately navigate on the bridge. The developed robotic system can lessen the cost and time of the bridge deck data collection and risks of human inspections. The advanced software is dev...

Link slabs designed for macroscopically crack free concrete bridge decks system were experimentally tested. The property requirements of the link slab material were considered. Special focus was placed on the fatigue and durability performance. Introduction of a ductile Engineered Cementitious Composite (ECC) material is proposed for its ability to control crack width and to exhibit high ductil...

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the long-term vertical deformations of segmented pre-tensioned concrete bridges by a new approach. It provides a practical and reliable method for calculating the amount of long-term deformation based on creep and shrinkage in segmented prestress bridges. There are various relationships for estimating the creep and shrinkage of concrete. The analytical r...

Bridges are potentially one of the most seismically vulnerable structures in the highway system during earthquake events. It is known that the seismic performance of transportation systems plays a key role in the post-earthquake emergency management. Hence, it is necessary to evaluate both physical and functional aspects of bridge structures. The physical aspects of the seismic performance...

While microgravity exposure is known to cause deterioration of skeletal muscle performance, little is known regarding its effect on tendon structure and function. Hence, the aims of this study were to investigate the effects of simulated microgravity on the mechanical properties of human tendon and to assess the effectiveness of resistive countermeasures in preventing any detrimental effects. E...

Abstract In the 1940’s, a reinforced concrete (RC) railway bridge located in central Johannesburg was constructed using Witwatersrand Quartzite, at time, unknown to be an alkali-silica reactive aggregate. The currently displays signs of distress form severe map-cracking. This study presents preliminary results series tests that have been conducted characterise severity alkali silica reaction (A...

This research studies the structural behaviour of bridge deck slabs under static patch loads in steel–concrete composite bridges and investigates compressive membrane action (CMA) in concrete bridge decks slabs,which governs the structural behaviour. A non-linear 3D finite element analysismodels was developed using ABAQUS 6.5 software packages. Experimental data from one-span composite bridge s...