Behavior of precast beams joints in bridges

Abstract EN

In the last few decades, precast concrete has become strongly recommended for the most types of bridges construction due to time saving, quality control and concrete members consistency.

In bridges construction, precast concrete elements are connected together in order to achieve bridge deck integrity and stability; joints between these elements shall be able to transmit all internal forces due to service loads safely.

The presented paper introduces an experimental study of the performance of stitching joint between precast beams and determines if this detail could generate a precast deck system that could emulate the monolithic cast-in-place deck systems without any advantages to stitching concrete joint over monolithic one regarding material properties.

In this respect, an experimental program was conducted on six specimens which were tested to failure under a static vertical load.

Three specimens of monolithic cast-in-place beam to beam connection and three specimens of precast beams with stitching joints were tested using three different positions of vertical load to simulate flexural tension or diagonal tension shear failures.

Results obtained by experimental work indicated that stitching joints have a reduced flexural capacity compared with monolithic joints, while two types of joints have the same shear capacity