Testing, assessment and FRP strengthening of concrete T-beam bridges in Pennsylvania

The transportation infrastructure of the United States is in urgent need of rehabilitation. The effects of ageing and deterioration, along with increased traffic demands have raised the concern that the deteriorated conditions of highway bridges need to be addressed to insure the safety of the public. Several rehabilitation methods are available to engineers including: bridge replacement, bridge repair, and retrofitting with mechanisms designed to increase the structural capacity of a bridge.The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation -- District 3 (PennDOT-D3) has sponsored a multi-phase project to investigate externally bonded Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) technology on their deteriorated concrete T-Beam bridges. The bridge inventory maintained by PennDOT-D3 includes 128 concrete T-Beam bridges built between 1920 and 1960. Ageing and deterioration effects have caused these bridges to become structurally deficient and/or obsolete. PennDOT-D3 has teamed with researchers from West Virginia University to develop a system to transfer FRP bridge rehabilitation technology to PennDOT's district forces.The work presented in this thesis focuses on the structural condition assessment and strengthening with externally bonded FRP of bridge During the course of work in this study, a structural analysis program was developed to accurately assess the structural capacity of a simply supported concrete T-Beam bridge. The program was designed to be more flexible and easier to use than PennDOT's Bridge Analysis and Rating program (BAR7). The program developed at WVU includes a section for FRP strengthening design. Load rating analysis based on the strengthening design is included in the program.