| Over the past years the United States Department of Agriculture - Forest Products Laboratory and the Federal Highway Administration have supported several research programs. This thesis is a result of a study sponsored by the Forest Products Laboratory, with the objective of determining how truckloads are distributed to the structural members of glued-laminated timber bridges. Glued-laminated timber girder bridges with glued-laminated timber deck panels and longitudinal glued-laminated timber deck bridges were the focus of this paper. Currently, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials LRFD Bridge Design Specification provides live load distribution provisions for glued-laminated timber bridges. This paper investigates the existing live load distribution provisions for glued-laminated timber bridges utilizing field test data collected by Iowa State University researchers, laboratory test data, and analytical finite element modeling. From this data, simplified live load distribution equations were developed following methods established for other bridge types where needed to improve the accuracy of determining how truckloads are distributed to structural members of glued-laminated timber bridges. |
