Transverse Slab Reinforcement Design of Concrete Bridge Deck: A Review

Abstract

This paper reviews the current design practices of transverse slab reinforcement design in concrete bridge deck, which consist of concrete deck slab on wide concrete T-beams. The conventional bridge design method results in the provision of excessive transverse steel reinforcement in the concrete bridge deck slab due to the fact that, the slab is assumed to bear the applied vehicular loadings alone without considering the contribution of the wide T-beam flanges. Thus, the design which is based on bending and failure proved to be too conservative. Through critical review, issues regarding some design approaches were discussed. It has been found that, designing the deck slab in transverse direction would enable the vehicle wheel loads to be supported by the wide T-beam flanges and performance enhancement can be achieved by compressive membrane action resulted from the natural stiffness of the wide girder flanges. The presence of this membrane forces provides a punching shear capacity, which is far beyond the flexural design capacity for the new bridge deck system. This capacity would result in substantial reduction of the transverse reinforcement within the slab.