Analysis of Prestressed Concrete Girders in Chanthaburi River Bridge using Finite Element Method by ATENA program

Abstract

The bridge over the Chanthaburi River is a pre-stressed concrete bridge. As the bridge is located near the river mouth connected to the sea, it has a high tendency to lose its reinforcing bar due to corrosion from an aggressive environment, which results in the loss of effective reinforcement ratio and spalling of covering concrete. Furthermore, due to the prestress losses in post-tensioned bridge girders, it can induce excessive deflections and crack in PC bridge girders. Including the amount of traffic that is increasing every year. This project is aimed to assess the condition of the superstructure of the bridge by analyze the behavior and predict the structural failure patterns of the bridge by using 2D Non-linear Finite Element Method (FEM), ATENA 2D software. The model was evaluated based on AASHTO LRFD-2007 standards. From the analytical results, the influence of prestress losses was greater than the influence of corrosion. Furthermore, the bridge has more value than AASHTO standard which meant that the bridge’s girders had slight deterioration. Therefore, the bridge will be able to support the load capacity. However, maintenance is required to strengthen and prevent structural corrosion, improve the structural efficiency, and prolong service life in the future.