The technology of repairing reinforced concrete bridges typically involves closing traffic on one half of the structure and performing work on it when it is possible to move vehicles on the second part of this structure. The main process of interest to practitioners in terms of hardening concrete, which occurs in the beams of a span structure during the passage of a temporary moving load, is deformation. By the time the cement of freshly laid concrete of the overhead reinforcement slab is hardened, it is necessary to create the necessary conditions for this (temperature, humidity, immobility over time, etc.). Before concrete acquires strength, movements arising in the span structure cause the destruction of cement stone at the formation stage. It is necessary to investigate the presence of deformations, as well as their impact on the impossibility of forming a homogeneous structure of concrete and its adhesion to reinforcing elements that combine the existing slab with the new one.
This study has established deformations induced by a temporary load from 1.61 to 5.83 mm, which have a negative impact on the process of solidification of concrete in the reinforcement slab for a span structure during the repair of a motorway bridge. The three-dimensional models were calculated by simulating a bridge of the M-04 highway. The results underlie the conclusions that the technology of repair work does not take into consideration the required conditions for high-quality concrete strength acquisition in an additional slab.
The study results established that operations on concreting an additional overhead reinforcement slab in the presence of vibrational effects exerted by the temporary load on the span structure cannot be performed because of the destruction of concrete at the hardening stage.
Given the above issue, several ways to address it have been devised and analyzed; the best of them is recommended