TESTING OF STEEL-FREE BRIDGE DECKS

Steel-free deck slabs made with cast-in-place concrete have already been incorporated in four highway bridges across Canada. Panels 150 mm (6 inches) thick in the middle, and spanning over two steel plate girders at a spacing of 3.5 m (11 feet), were used for the Lindquist Bridge on a gravel forestry road in British Columbia. The bridge was recently tested under a controlled vehicle load mainly to confirm that the bridge with the novel precast panel behaved according to bridge design assumptions. In particular, the test was required to investigate the composite action between the girders and the precast decking. This article presents the details of the test and discusses the results.