PRELIMINARY DESIGN ANALYSIS OF A PEDESTRIAN FRP

BRIDGE DECK USING SANDWICH CONSTRUCTION

Patrice Godonou* & Lars Liljenfeldt
SICOMP AB
Box 271
SE-941 26 Pite, Sweden
patrice.godonou@sicomp.se

Prof. Thomas Olofsson

Division of Structural Engineering
Dept. of Civil Engineering
SE-971 87, Lule, Sweden

Keywords: FRP Bridge Deck, Preliminary Design Analysis, Sandwich Construction

ABSTRACT
A simplified method is used to conduct the preliminary design analysis of a FRP pedestrian
bridge deck. When using FRP as main structural material in bridge construction, the driving
design factor is stiffness. Since this structure is lightweight, the second issue of concern is to
ensure that its eigenfrequency fulfills the existing requirements. The bridge deck concept in
the present study is consisting in a series of boxes with FRP laminates as faces and walls and
isotropic structural foam as core material. Laminate Beam Theory is used in combination with
design methods for sandwich construction. The assumption is made that the boxes flexural
and shear stiffnesses sum up in the multicellular box.
The selected geometry and material architecture is tested for maximum allowed deflection,
eigenfrequency and ultimate strength.
INTRODUCTION
The interest for Fiber Reinforced Polymers (FRP) as structural material for civil
infrastructures is increasing worldwide. Many construction design concepts using FRP are
now becoming commercially competitive. At SICOMP, a Swedish Composites research
organization, a concept for the design of pedestrian FRP bridges using sandwich construction
is under development.
A refined design analysis of sandwich bridge deck normally requires a big amount
computational work due to the anisotropic nature of the Fiber Reinforced Polymers that
constitute the faces and eventual walls of the structure. Moreover, there exist today no
component standards or design norms readily for use as for conventional building
construction materials like concrete and steel. Because of these difficulties practitioner
construction engineers are reluctant to the use of the FRP as a building material, despite its
advantages in many infrastructure applications. The method used in this paper is a rather
simplified technique for a fast and accurate preliminary analysis of a FRP sandwich deck. The
model can then be easily verified and validated using any commercial FEM software package.

BRIDGE CONCEPT
The proposed concept for the bridge shape is as described in Fig.1. The bridge consists of 3
spans of which the mid-span is removable.

Figure 1: Side and Top Views of Bridge structure

All the 3 spans will be simply supported. While the curved form in the horizontal plane
described in Fig.1 is essentially of aesthetic order, the curvature in the vertical plane is meant
to contribute to an increased stiffness of the structure. For more details about the geometrical
dimensions of column A, see Fig.2.

Figure 2: Sketch of one column carrying bridge deck

The aesthetic theme about the bridge architecture was to use shapes that are related to a snake
body or motion. Other general requirements for the bridge concept were use of components
manufactured by Vacuum Injection, modular sections, and competitive total cost.
Moreover, the different parts of the bridge should be as slender as possible. This last
requirement sets some limits on the geometrical dimensions of the bridge deck, such as
thickness for instance.

DESIGN ANALYSIS

Figure 3: Actual shape of deck in longitudinal direction

The first approximation was to consider the deck as a rectangular shaped deck in the
preliminary design. The actual geometrical shape of the mid-span deck is a simply supported
curved beam as shown in Fig. 3.
In this step of the bridge design the analysis will be limited to investigating the maximum
deformation criteria, the structures free vibration criteria and strength criteria.
The following material combination was selected:
A quasi-isotropic Stitched Fabric Glass fiber is used as reinforcing material and polyester as
resin with a fiber volume fraction of approximately 50%. The fiber orientation is [0, 45,
90]S. The laminate is designed using the classical micro/ macromechanics of FRP. The final
laminate is assumed to be quasi-isotropic. The mechanical properties of the laminate are as
follow E1 = E2 = Ef =14700 MPa, G12 = 5460 MPa and 12 = f =0.34.
In the first design attempt, the following geometrical dimensions were used:
tf = 16 mm is the box flange thickness, tw = 16 mm is the web thickness, h = 200 mm is the
total deck section thickness and l = 16500 mm is the deck length, assuming a rectangular, not
curved beam.
For the core material, a foam core Divinycell H60 with c = 60 kg/m3, Ec = 60 MPa and Gc =
22 MPa was used.
Control of maximum allowable deflection
According to the Swedish bridge design norm Bro 94, the maximum allowable deflection
max should be L/400, L being the span length. For the mid-span as shown in Fig.1, max
41.25 mm.
The deck is consisting in a series of adjacent boxed beams. Mechanical properties will be first
computed according to the Divinycell Technical Manual [1] for a single boxed beam using
Ef
to account for the Poisson effect. Then combined effect of the adjacent boxed
E=
1 2f
beams will be considered by summing up the flexural stiffness D0 and shear stiffness F0,
using a method from a work presented by Brown Brian J. [2]. Hence, the total flexural
stiffness will be D = n * D0 and the total shear stiffness F = n * F0 with D0 and F0 referring to
a single boxed beam. N is the number of boxed beams.

Figure 4: Geometrical dimensions of boxed beam in the first input selection

Figure 5: Model of deck represented by 3 boxed beams

Using the design method described in the Handbook of Sandwich Construction [3], the
following approximations are made:
d
> 5.77 . For d = 168 mm and tf = 16 mm,
Thin face approximation: valid if
tf

d
= 10.5 > 5.77
tf

6E f t f d 2
Dc
Weak core approximation:
> 100 . With our first choice of
< 0.01 if
E c t c3
D0

6 * 14700 * 16 * 1682
= 106.6
60 * 184 3
Both approximations are valid and we can therefore calculate the flexural stiffness as:
Eftf d2
(1)
D=
2
In computing the shear stiffness F, we will take into account both the contributions of the core
and the fiber composite shells. Hence, F = Gw t w bw + Gc t c bc
(2)
Considering a 3-points bending load, the beam deflection s expressed as:
1 PL3 1 PL
(3)
total = bending + shear =
+
48 D
4 KF
where K is the shear correction factor. In the first approximation, K 1 .
With the first choice of geometrical dimensions as in Fig.3, the maximal deflection was
computed for a point load P = 90 kN which is the load of the snow clearance vehicle. The
deflection was > 300 mm , which was far above the allowable.
Using tf = tw = 24 mm, h = 300 mm and a laminate with Ef = 20700 MPa, we obtain a
maximum deflection of about 55 mm. This deflection is roughly 30% higher than the
maximum allowable and is acceptable for the preliminary design.
material, we obtain

In order to increase the stiffness, one of the following measures is possible:

Increase the total thickness of the section. But considering the slenderness requirement
from the architectural design, it is not possible to exceed a total thickness of 300 mm.
Moreover, increasing these parameters will lead to increased material and manufacturing
costs.
Increase the faces or the wall thickness. Due to difficulties in manufacturing thick
laminates using Vacuum Injection Molding, it is not advisable to exceed a thickness of 16
mm. Moreover, higher thickness will lead to resin rich areas between the beam boxes with
worsen mechanical properties as a result.
Include additional FRP walls across the bridge decks width, thus having three or more
boxes in the longitudinal direction.
Use a material with higher mechanical properties. With cost efficiency in mind, we could
use E-glass fibers with E modulus up to 21 000 MPa. Above this value, structural glass fiber
must be used, which is much more expensive. Instead, it could be reasonable to use carbon
fiber. Although carbon fiber is an expensive material, much lower quantity will be needed.
And the slenderness requirement needs not to be jeopardized.
Considering the above mentioned factors, a new deflection control was made for the
following material configuration:
Determination of eigenfrequency
Noticing that the deflection criterion is satisfied, next the eigenfrequency of the structure was
calculated as follows, using [2]:

mn

2 mb
2
=
+n

D
b (1 2 )

mb 2
2
2
1 +
+n

l
* 4

(4)

Gc d 2
D
with =
, S=
and * = 2 f t f + c t c
tc
S (1 2 )b 2
Equation (4) is valid for isotropic materials but can be used here if we assume the whole
construction to be quasi-isotropic.
Control of Strength criteria
The main criteria to be investigated are general and local buckling
General buckling
Using method exposed in [2] handbook, the buckling load is computed as:
Gc d 2
n 2 2 D
1
1
1
where Pb =
and
P
=
=
S
=
+
s
tc
P Pb Ps
( L ) 2
Local buckling
4 D 2f

The following equation gives the length of the buckling L =

E G
c
c

and a buckling load is given by 0.53 E f E c Gc

1/ 6

CONCLUSIONS
Although using simplified methods, this preliminary design analysis give an accurate estimate
of the design needed to satisfy the requirements for such a bridge.
Commercial package for FEM will be used to validate the results from the preliminary
analysis
A refined analysis will be carried out were the curved shape of he sandwich deck is
considered. At this level of the design, the thickness will also vary using a smooth function,
with the middle of the span having the biggest thickness. In the area of maximum stress, at the
middle of the span, the use of a stiffer structural core will be analyzed. At the location of the
end supports, the deck is to be stiffened by a thicker laminate or the use of stronger structural
foam. The material used as wearing surface for the deck will add to the structures stiffness
and should be therefore accounted for.
Carbon fiber will be considered as an alternative reinforcing material for the walls and faces
of the deck structure.
Different material architectures will be considered for the mid-span and the 2 exterior spans
respectively.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to thank The Development Fund of the Swedish Construction Industry,
SBUF and the Research Council of Norrbotten for their financial support which has
been invaluable to the project.
We would also like to thank the council of the city of Lule that made it possible to connect
this research project to a real bridge design situation.
REFERENCES
1. Brian J. Brown, Design Analysis of Single-Span Advanced Composite Deck-AndStringer Bridge Systems, Thesis Report, 1998
2. Zenkert D., Editor, The Handbook of Sandwich Construction, 1997
3. Technical Manual, Divinycell, 1997