Control of Creep and Shrinkage Effects in Steel Concrete Composite Bridges with Precast Decks

Creep and shrinkage in concrete deck of steel-concrete composite bridges can result in significant redistribution and consequent increase in bending moments at continuity supports and also increase in deflections. Studies are presented for the control of creep and shrinkage effects in steel-concrete composite bridges with precast concrete decks. A hybrid procedure recently developed by the authors has been used for carrying out the studies. The procedure accounts for creep, shrinkage and progressive cracking in concrete decks. Single span, three span and five span bridges have been analyzed for different thicknesses of concrete decks and grades of concrete. Both the shored and unshored constructions have been considered. It is shown that, for both constructions, the increase in bending moments and midspan deflections can be controlled to a significant degree, without putting constraints on design parameters, by simply delaying the time of mobilization of composite action between the precast concrete deck panels and the steel section. It is also observed that though the percentage change in bending moments due to creep and shrinkage is similar for shored and unshored constructions, the percentage change in midspan deflection is significantly higher for shored construction.