Title: Behavioral Study of Ultra High Performance Concrete Girders
Master of Science: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
Project Intro: The importance of transportation facilities to the nation's economic strength and efficiency is generally recognized. A fundamental requirement of manufacturers is to distribute their products to appropriate markets quickly and inexpensively; people must be able to get to work and to conduct business. As illustrated by recent disasters - flooding along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers and the Northridge earthquake in California - any significant disruption in the movement of goods or people economically impacts a great number of businesses and huge population groups. The FHWA established a priority research project in 1989 for studying the connection linkage between investment in highways and bridges and the nations ability to sustain economic performance and growth. The link between transportation and economic development continues to justify significant public expenditures in transportation systems at the local, state, and federal levels. The benefits from our highway system cross all levels of society and are exhibited in several ways. The industry studies indicate that evolving management forms and logistic cost-savings would not be possible without our expansive highway system. For example, a lower-cost, efficient, reliable highway network allows transportation consumers to redesign production processes and access more markets, thereby providing a wider array of goods and services at lower costs. Reductions in logistic costs will continue to offer consumers and producers extraordinary benefits.
Abstract: Ultra High Performance Concrete (UHPC) is one of the newer and superior classes of concrete that can be used to develop improved bridges capable of meeting the present and future traffic, environmental, maintenance and economical requirements. Developing on the superior material properties of UHPC, the research discussed herein studies the behavior of UHPC when used as a bridge girder material. Four optimized girders have been cast and studied for various early age as well as long term properties such as early age shrinkage, transfer length, creep behavior and shrinkage under steam treatment. Data has been recorded through vibrating wire gages installed at strategic locations within each girder before they are cast. While the shrinkage and creep observed are very low which is characteristic of UHPC, various other aspects such as shrinkage being closely tied to formwork restraint and temperature and the prestress transfer being dependent on the girder geometry and strand pattern have been discussed. From the results we can conclude that UHPC is a promising bridge building material and with further research can be extensively employed for developing bridges.
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