Comparative study of bridge traffic loadings between British standards and Eurocodes

The Commission of the European Community decided to eliminate technical obstacles to provide a more open marketplace due to different design codes across countries in Europe. The good intention had caused the British Standards (BS) adopted since year 1990 in many countries to be replaced by the Eurocodes (EC) in year 2010. The withdrawal of the BS has induces a challenge to Malaysia’s practitioners in handling the bridge design in accordance to the EC. Hence, this study provides a detail discussion on the essential of traffic loads in both design codes of BS and EC. The discussion includes a new concept in EC whereby the variable actions are categorised into four representative values which are explicated in this study. The differences in the application of partial safety factor in both codes are also presented in this study. A simply supported bridge is employed in this study as a demonstration for a comparative study to highlight the difference in the implementation between the two approaches. The grillage analysis is utilised to model the seven different span lengths of bridge using the STAAD.Pro. From result, it is found that the nature of UDL governs for the maximum moment differently depending on the loaded bridge length. The modified adjustment factor also provides a significant effect to the analysis.The Commission of the European Community decided to eliminate technical obstacles to provide a more open marketplace due to different design codes across countries in Europe. The good intention had caused the British Standards (BS) adopted since year 1990 in many countries to be replaced by the Eurocodes (EC) in year 2010. The withdrawal of the BS has induces a challenge to Malaysia’s practitioners in handling the bridge design in accordance to the EC. Hence, this study provides a detail discussion on the essential of traffic loads in both design codes of BS and EC. The discussion includes a new concept in EC whereby the variable actions are categorised into four representative values which are explicated in this study. The differences in the application of partial safety factor in both codes are also presented in this study. A simply supported bridge is employed in this study as a demonstration for a comparative study to highlight the difference in the implementation between the two approaches. The grill...