Failure Investigation of under Construction Prestressed Concrete Bridge in Chitwan, Nepal

Abstract

On 6 April 2021, a 200 m-long under-construction prestressed concrete bridge failed in the Chitwan District in central Nepal. Two of the four bridge spans collapsed without any notable evidence of dynamic force application. Under-construction bridge failures are sometimes reported and can have a significant impact on the future construction adjustments. Thus, a detailed study of failure mechanisms will be insightful for the structural engineering community. Aiming to document the failure modes and exemplify lessons for improvement, this paper reports the detailed component level failure mechanisms of the bridge using visual inspection, site measurements, finite element modeling, and some forms of non-destructive testing. The chronological failure mechanisms are presented based on the field evidence and juxtaposed with the results of analytical modeling. The sum of findings highlights that the dead load failure, triggered by the settlement of falseworks, is the most critically governing factor that initiated and aggravated the damage scenario.

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“…Out of the four spans, three spans were designed as prestressed concrete girders and the third span from the right was designed as a steel truss bridge. Span# 1 and #2 from the right were collapsed after casting of concrete and before prestressing in April 2021 (Adhikari et al, 2022) [Span #2 appears to be reconstructed as shown in Figure 4 taken in October 2022]. Contractors that were habitual of relatively shorter spans could not adequately plan for relatively longer spans of the prestressed bridges.…”