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Abstract: For concrete box girders with wide anges, a ribbed slab can increase the cantilever length and transverse stiffness while
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reducing the dead weight of the deck. For single box girder bridges with a large width-to-span ratio, the traditional cross section of a
single-cell box girder (the two-web box section) can lose efciency because of the effect of shear lag, cross-section distortion, and
transverse bending moments. A literature search revealed that the prestressed concrete box girder with transverse ribs is already used
in certain countries to meet the requirements of wide bridge decks of single-cell concrete box girders. However, little research has
been conducted on the mechanical properties of this spine-like box girder, although it has been used in many applications. In this pa-
per, the structural forms and dimensions of a concrete box girder with wide anges and a ribbed slab are introduced on the basis of
design experience. A signicant difference in the mechanical performance of ribbed box girders and conventional box girders was
observed in the inuence of the stiffened ribs. Therefore, on the basis of engineering practices, three representative three-dimensional
(3D) nite-element models (i.e., ribbed box girder, equivalent box girder, and ordinary box girder) were established to quantitatively
investigate the inuence of stiffened ribs on transverse stress under the action of gravity and vehicle loads. The results of this investigation
can be used as a reference for designing and constructing similar projects. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)BE.1943-5592.0001076. 2017
American Society of Civil Engineers.
Author keywords: Wide box girder; Transverse ribs; Transverse analysis; Stress concentration.
Introduction sectional form, namely a box girder with a ribbed slab, has been
used in Europe since the 1970s. In general, the length of the side
With increasing urban populations and trafc ow, prestressed cantilever of a conventional box girder is less than 4 m, and it is
concrete wide-deck box girders have been increasingly used for used for pedestrians and cyclists. Once side cantilevers exceed
constructing new and reconstructing old bridges. For prestressed approximately 4 m, they should be prestressed or include ribbed
concrete single-cell box girders with wide anges, the space or propped slabs. Thus, the length of a ribbed cantilever can be
between the webs and the cantilever length are large. It is obvious greatly extended. For instance, the cantilever of the Vejie Fjord
that structural weight will dramatically increase as the concrete Bridge in Denmark is 8.8 m. Ribbed slabs can be adapted to make
deck width increases. Furthermore, increasing the weight will a bridge deck thinner and can effectively reduce transverse nor-
signicantly increase transverse stress at the root of the cantilever mal stress at the root of the haunch caused by dead load or vehicle
and in the middle of the slab, where the transverse rigidity of the loads. The transverse bending moment capacity is the controlling
ordinary box section might be insufcient for carrying dead and factor for the dimensions of a wide bridge deck.
live loads. Therefore, the traditional box girder form might not be Although this type of ribbed box section has been used in engi-
the most economical structural form. Common forms of box gird- neering practice in many countries, most existing bridges were
ers should be optimized to improve their transverse stiffness with designed on the basis of practical experience. Few scholars have
due consideration for the mechanical performance of the structure conducted quantitative studies of the basic mechanical behaviors
and its economics. To reduce the dead weight of the superstruc- of this type of structure. The concept of using ribbed box sections
ture and to improve the stress condition, an improved cross- and their dimensions were briey introduced by Benaim (2007),
but the effects of longitudinally distributed transverse ribs on the
1
mechanical behavior of the stiffened deck have not been studied.
Ph.D. Student, Dept. of Civil Earth Resources Engineering, Kyoto Rodriguez (2004) noted that the use of a ribbed top slab is an
Univ., Kyoto 6110011, Japan (corresponding author). E-mail: zhou.man
effective approach to increasing the transverse stiffness of wide
.67e@st.kyoto-u.ac.jp
2
Professor, College of Civil Engineering, Southeast Univ., Nanjing single-cell box girders. Zheng and Liu (2009) briey introduced
210096, China. the structural forms and mechanical characteristics of wide box
3
Professor, College of Architecture Science and Engineering, Yangzhou girders as well as their economic factors. Ramakko (1984)
Univ., Yangzhou 225127, China. described the design and construction of the Twelve Mile Creek
4
Associate Professor, Faculty of Engineering, Tanta Univ., Tanta bridges and noted that a 10% reduction in weight was achieved by
999060, Egypt. using transverse ribs instead of a haunched slab with variable
5
Associate Professor, Dept. of Civil Earth Resources Engineering, thickness. Both the solid top slabs of all segments and the trans-
Kyoto Univ., Kyoto 6110011, Japan.
verse ribs should be transversely posttensioned with straight ten-
Note. This manuscript was submitted on July 27, 2016; approved on
March 6, 2017; published online on June 6, 2017. Discussion period open dons. The St. Andre de Cubzac Bridge, which has a 17-m-wide
until November 6, 2017; separate discussions must be submitted for indi- single-cell box girder and ribbed top slab, was designed by world-
vidual papers. This paper is part of the Journal of Bridge Engineering, renowned bridge designer Jean Muller with segmental prefabrica-
ASCE, ISSN 1084-0702. tion (Tassin 2006). These studies only briey introduced this type
For a wide-body box girder with a side cantilever longer than Case Study: Project Background
approximately 4 m, a ribbed slab can be used to increase the rein-
forced concrete lever arm while reducing the dead weight of the The approach of the Second Yangtze River Bridge in Wuhu, located
deck, as shown in Fig. 1. The dimensions and spans of transverse in the southern region of Anhui Province in China, was chosen as a
stiffeners are determined by the live design load. The deck slab case study. This bridge is the rst precast segmental prestressed
for a ribbed side cantilever will generally be 200 mm thick with concrete box girder bridge with transverse ribs under construction
ribs at the centers of approximately 35 m. The rib height at the in China. The superstructure is a prestressed concrete continuous
root of the cantilever is generally 1/7 to 1/9 of the length of the box girder with a 16.25-m-wide and 0.24-m-thick top slab and a
cantilever slab. Transverse ribs are usually set in the middle (or at 0.2-m-thick bottom slab, a depth of 2.6 m, a cantilever length of 4.5
both ends) of the segments. The most common arrangement is to m, a 6.08-m-wide bottom slab and a 0.4-m-thick web. Each span is
Name Location Depth (m) Width (m) Web distance (m) Cantilever (m)
Vejie Fjord Bridge Denmark 2.56 27.6 10.011.96 7.828.8
Sallingsund Bridge Denmark 2.55.9 16.1 6.08.1 45.05
Twelve Mile Creek bridges Canada 2.82 13.5 7.6 2.95
Viaduc du Lac de Gruyre Switzerland 4 23.7 6 8.85
Saint-Andre-de-Cubzac Bridge France 2.55.5 17
New Benicia-Martinez Bridge America 4.511.4 24 16.7 3.65
Fig. 1. Cross-sectional forms of a box girder with a ribbed cantilever slab: (a) Section 1; (b) Section 2; (c) Section 3
Fig. 3. Elevation and cross-sectional dimensions: (a) overall size of the structure; (b) dimensions of the cross-section (Note: Units are millimeters)
40 m long, and each precast segment is 3 m long. The transverse degrees. End displacement was constrained to form a simply sup-
ribs are located at the middle of the segment and are 0.3 m wide and ported beam.
0.2 m deep near the cantilever end and 0.9 m deep near the web. To evaluate the effects of the transverse ribs on the mechanical
The cross-sectional dimensions of the bridge are shown in Fig. 3. A performance of the wide box girder, three types of box girder mod-
wide box girder with a long cantilever and transverse ribs has many els with different cross sections were established.
benets, such as its lighter weight, fewer materials, and lower cost. Model 1: ribbed box girder based on the design scheme of the
In addition to broadening the bridge deck, both sides of the long actual bridge, as shown in Fig. 5(a).
cantilever can provide enough headroom for ground transportation. Model 2: equivalent box girder for which the volume of the
A double-column pier and bored pile foundation are used for the transverse ribs is redistributed to the top slab, as shown in Fig.
substructure. The dimensions of the bridge with an elevation and 5(b).
for a cross section are shown in Fig. 3. Model 3: ordinary box girder for which the transverse ribs in
Model 1 are removed, as shown in Fig. 5(c).
The thickness of the cantilever root section and the middle slab
Finite-Element Model: Calculation Models of Model 2 are 10 cm and 2 cm thicker than those of Model 3,
respectively.
The 40-m-long simply supported beam of the approach was built in
Abaqus, as shown in Fig. 4. A 3D 8-noded hexahedral element
(C3D8R) was used to simulate a box girder with transverse ribs, Model Parameters
and a truss element (T3D2) was used to simulate the prestressing
tendons. The prestressing force effect was applied by using the Prestressed concrete beams typically use C50 concrete with a com-
equivalent lowering temperature method, and the prestressing ele- pressive strength of 50 MPa. In this study, concrete box girders
ments were embedded into the solid elements by coupling nodal were assumed to be homogeneous elastic bodies with a density of
Fig. 5. Three types of box girder models with different cross sections: (a) Model 1 (ribbed box girder); (b) Model 2 (equivalent box girder); (c) Model
3 (ordinary box girder)
2,500 kg/m3. A linear stress-strain relationship was used in the The worst loading arrangement along the longitudinal direction was
nite-element model to represent the concrete material with a mod- determined by the bending moment inuence lines when the mid-
ulus of elasticity of 32.5 GPa and a Poissons ratio of 0.2. Because it span moment reached its maximum, as shown in Fig. 6(b).
is a high-grade structural material, 1,860-MPa, low-relaxation pre-
stressing steel strands are used in bridge design. In the elastic stage,
the constitutive relation for prestressing tendons has linear elastic- Results of Calculation and Comparisons
ity. The elastic modulus of the prestressing tendons is 206 GPa,
and their Poissons ratio is 0.3. The density and linear expansion Under dead and live loads, the transverse stresses of points A and B
coefcients of the prestressing tendons are 7,800 kg/m3 and 1.0 were selected to represent the mechanical characteristics of the hog-
105/C, respectively. ging moment region near webs. The stress and deection of point C
were selected to represent the sagging moment region at the middle
of the upper ange, as shown in Fig. 7. The transverse stress and
Calculation Loads deection of a longitudinal calculation path located along points A,
B, and C were extracted from the results of the nite-element calcu-
A dead load and worst-case live load were used in the nite-element lation, and the numerical results are shown in Figs. 814.
models. The dead load includes the structural weight of the beam
and the prestressed reinforcement effect. In general, vehicle loads
are a dominating load that controls the design of the top slab. To Under the Action of Gravity
comprehensively evaluate the inuences of the transverse ribs on
the transverse stress of the ribbed cantilever and the ribbed top The numerical results of the transverse stress and the deection
ange slab, a ve-axle heavy vehicle with a weight of 55 t (Ministry along Paths A, B, and C for each nite-element model under gravity
of Communications of the Peoples Republic of China 2004) was are shown in Figs. 8 and 9.
selected for use as the live load, and four load cases were estab- Finite-element analysis indicated that the transverse ribs can
lished with various vehicle load positions, as shown in Fig. 6(a). effectively reduce the transverse stress of the wide box girder with a
Fig. 6. Arrangement of vehicle load: (a) transverse arrangement of vehicle loads; (b) longitudinal arrangement of vehicle loads (Note: Units are
meters)
stiffened slab under gravity in the sagging moment region or the effectively reduced and the cantilever can be widened. Moreover,
hogging moment region. This study also found that the phenom- the same phenomenon occurs inside the box girder. The longitudi-
enon of stress concentration and mutation is most serious around nal distribution of transverse tensile stress under the slab is not uni-
the stiffened ribs, which obviously differs from that of conventional form. The average transverse stress of Path C in Model 1 under
box girders. Considering the numerical computation results of gravity was 59.7% less than the stress in model-3. The transverse
Model 3 (ordinary box girder) as a reference, the average transverse stress of Path C was similar in Model 2 and Model 3, as shown in
stress of Path A in Model 1 under gravity was 33.3% less than the Fig. 8(b). It should be noted that the stress concentration is more
stress in Model 3; however, the transverse stress of Path A in Model obvious in the internal ribs, as shown in Fig. 8(b) (the peak tensile
2 increased by 19.0% as a result of increasing self-weight, as shown stress under the internal ribs is approximately four times the average
in Fig. 8(a). In this study, it was observed that part of the bending stress under the top ange). As shown in Fig. 8(c), under self-
moment is concentrated in the discrete stiffened ribs; thus, the maxi- weight, the maximum deection of the midspan of Model 1
mum transverse tensile stress near the root of the cantilever can be approaches the deection value of Model 2, and the midspan
The numerical results of the transverse tensile stress and the deec-
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Fig. 9. Transverse stress elds: (a) Path A (root of the cantilever slab); (b) Path C and C0 (middle of the upper ange)
Fig. 11. Transverse tensile stress and vertical displacement of each Fig. 12. Transverse tensile stress and vertical displacement of each
calculation path in Load Case 2 calculation path in Load Case 3
Fig. 13. Transverse tensile stress and vertical displacement of each calculation path in Load Case 4
Conclusions the ordinary box girder (Model 3). The results of numerical cal-
culation showed that the average transverse tensile stress at the
A new type of wide prestressed concrete box girder with transverse root of the cantilever in Model 1 under gravity was 33.3% less
ribs was studied in this paper. First, the structural characteristics than the stress in Model 3. However, the transverse stress at the
and the general demand for this ribbed box girder in construction root of the cantilever was actually greater by 19.0% in Model 2
are introduced. Then three types of 3D nite-element models were than in Model 3. Similarly, the average transverse stress of the
established in Abaqus according to a practical engineering case lower edge path of the top slab in Model 1 under gravity was
study to investigate the inuences of transverse stiffened ribs on 59.7% less than the stress in Model 3, and the transverse stress
the transverse mechanical behavior of this irregular box girder. of the middle section of the top slab in Model 2 was similar to
On the basis of this study, the following conclusions can be the results of Model 3. The investigated structure presented the
drawn: same mechanical behavior under vehicular loads.
1. Stiffened ribs can effectively improve the stress state at the root 2. The overall structural stiffness of the box girder with transverse
of the cantilever as well as at the middle of the top slab. To ribs was also improved. The maximum deection of Model 1 was
quantitatively analyze the effects of stiffened ribs on the me- 10% less than that of Model 2 when subjected to symmetrical ve-
chanical performance of the structure, three representative hicle loads. Therefore, this spine-like box girder can obtain a
nite-element models were established in Abaqus: the ribbed larger cross-sectional moment of inertia than Model 2, in which
box girder (Model 1), the equivalent box girder (Model\ 2) and the volume of these stiffened ribs was redistributed to the top slab.
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Acknowledgments Conception de la rehabilitation du pont de Saint-Andre de Cubzac.
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The authors express their gratitude for funding from the Priority Zheng, H. H., and Liu, Z. (2009). Discussion on the reasonable structural
Academic Program Development of Jiangsu High Education forms of wide box girder. Proc., 15th National Conf. on Bridge
Institution (Grant CE02-1-12). This study was also supported by Engineering, Nanjing, China, 2529 (in Chinese).