Soil Steel Composite Bridges. An international survey of full scale tests and comparison with the Pettersson-Sundquist design method

Abstract

Nowadays, many different efficient solutions are being studied to solve engineering problems. Inside this group of solutions we can find the Soil Steel Composite Bridges (SSCB) as an alternative to traditional bridges. SSCB are being used more often every day and they are showing themselves as competitive structures in terms of feasibility and constructability. This project was started to achieve two different goals. The first one was to create a general database of SSCB including few selected tests all around the world and the second one was to compare and discuss full scale tests using the Pettersson-Sundquist design method. To create the database and the following comparisons, twenty-five different full scale tests were used. From this tests all the necessary information was extracted and used to create the database. After creating the database, the project continued with the discussion and comparison of the full scale tests. Specifically those discussions and comparisons were related to the resistance of the soil (the soil modulus) used in the construction of the SSCB. All the values of the different soil modulus of each full scale test used in the comparisons were calculated using the Swedish Design Manual (SDM). Two different types of soil modulus were calculated in this project using SDM, ones are the soil modulus back calculated using the values reported from the live load tests performed on the culverts and the others are theoretical soil modulus calculated using the detailed information of the soil. The report continues with the explanation of the different conclusions ended up with during this project. It can be highlighted within this group of conclusions, the one related to the importance of reporting all the necessary information from the full scale tests including the soil parameters, the measures of the culvert, the cross sectional parameters and the vehicle dimensions among others. Another important conclusions are the effect of using the slabs over the top of the culvert and how it would effect to the sectional forces over the culvert and also the limitations using method B of the SDM regarding the type of soil used as backfilling Finally, the project finishes explaining some proposals for future research about other fields of the study of SSCB