Composite Construction Bridge Deck Design Coursework

The Composite Construction – Bridge Deck Design Coursework is part of the Structural Element Design Course.

The Design Coursework must be submitted to the Student Office before 16.00hrs Friday, 25 October; on calculation paper and with appropriate cover sheet. Collaboration between students on the coursework is not allowed.

Building on design and analytical skills learned throughout this course as well as other relevant courses undertake global structural analysis and detailed design of elements of the composite steel-concrete bridge deck shown in Figure 1.

Utilise plane grid/grillage techniques (LUSAS Software) to carry out global analysis of the bridge deck and determine design load effects in its elements.

• understand the basis on which common structural loadings for design are determined, including the provision of safety margins;
• understand the fundamental failure modes of composite construction and the principles on which Code of Practice rules for design of straightforward elements are derived;
• how these Code of Practice rules are to be deployed in the detail design of straightforward structural systems in order to address the failure modes considered;
• integrate and apply disparate taught topics (from this course and others within the programme) into the detail design process; in particular undertake appropriately checked computer-based grillage analysis to produce stresses and forces on which to base your design;
• use Eurocodes’ documentation to assist in the design verification process;
• present design calculations to a professional standard, i.e. in a coherent and systematic manner and which permits ready checking of the procedures employed.

A completed package should include the following Technical Content:

Calculations of the composite bridge deck:

a) Initial design of the bridge deck (i.e., girder size, spacing between them, thickness of the concrete slab), including relevant sketches (with all required dimensions);

b) Calculations of input data for the grillage analysis;

c) Summary sketches showing bending moments and shear forces including their values (LUSAS printouts) for all values used in the design;

d) Hand checks confirming the model (bending moment and deflection checks);

e) Check of the bending resistance of the most loaded girder;

f) Check of the shear resistance of the most loaded girder;

g) Design of shear connection for the most loaded girder;

h) Design of transverse reinforcement in the deck slab for longitudinal shear