Working State of ECC Link Slabs Used in Continuous Bridge Decks

• Published in: Applied sciences 2019-11, Vol.9 (21), p.4667
• Main Authors: Zhong, Junfei, Shen, Jiyang, Wang, Wei, Shi, Jun, Yang, Xiaocong, Zhou, Guangchun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: bridge deck link slab; Bridge decks; Bridges; Building codes; Concrete; Continuous bridges; Corrosion; Critical point; data expansion; Ductility; engineered cementitious composites; Flux density; generalized strain-energy density; Internal forces; Interpolation; Investigations; Mutation; Prestressed concrete; Reinforced concrete; Slabs; Structural analysis; Structural design; Structural engineering; Structural failure; Traffic control; Vertical loads; working state
• ISSN: 2076-3417; 2076-3417
• DOI: 10.3390/app9214667

The working states of three types of engineered cementitious composites (ECC) link slabs subjected to vertical loads are investigated based on the structural working state theory. The scattered measured strains are firstly expanded into spatially continuous data using the response simulating interpolation method without loss of original information. The generalized strain energy density (GSED) is derived from these data and the sum of which are used to characterize the working states of ECC link slabs. Thereafter, the Mann-Kendall (M-K) criterion is introduced to detect the working state leaps during the whole loading procedure and two critical mutations are revealed: The yielding point and the initial structural failure point. Finally, the working state modes, the characteristics of strain fields and the development of internal forces are employed to verify the working state mutations around the revealed critical points. The GSED-based analysis of structural working state is an innovative method to discern some unseen working behavior characteristics which are ignored by traditional structural analysis theory. The work reported herein has a further effect in improving the structural design codes for ECC link slabs.