Resistance of curved steel cross-sections for bridge deck applications: Design proposals

Abstract In this paper, design rules are proposed for the assessment of the bending, shear and M-V interaction capacity of box-girder bridge decks with a curved bottom flange. The two analytical design models, for the determination of the bending and shear resistance, use the EC3 format for straight bottom flanges but they are adapted to account for the presence of a stiffened curved panel in the bottom flange. Subsequently, these two models are implemented in the M-V interaction equation, adopted in prEN 1993-1-5, whose safety is verified against the FEM results. The results show that the M-V interaction equation might be safely applied across the entire range of parameters covered in this study. Finally, all three models (i.e. bending resistance, shear resistance, and the M-V interaction criterion) are statistically assessed by calculating the partial factor (γM). It is concluded that the partial factors γM,0 = 1.0 and γM,1 = 1.1 for the bending and shear resistance models, respectively, may be kept also in the design of box-girder bridges with a curved bottom flange.