The purpose of the edge beam is to support the railing and the pavement, function as part of the drainage system and in the case it is integrated into the bridge deck it can serve to distribute concentrated loads. It is located in road environment and therefore exposed to water and salt with chlorides as well as subject to impacts during accidents. It deteriorates in a greater pace than the rest of the bridge and therefore has a shorter lifespan than the bridge in full. A deteriorated edge beam put the safety of the bridge users in jeopardize and increases the need of maintenance, repair and replacement work. These activities affect the surrounding traffic flow due to reduced speed limits as well as closure of traffic lanes. A literature study has been performed to get an understanding of how edge beams are designed and constructed. A great part of this was done by examining codes and regulations. By meeting engineers from different building companies it has been possible to obtain a picture of how it is done in real life and how the path to the final design looks like. Building site visits were carried out to see the process from design to construction i.e. how it is applied in real life. A design study was performed, including a check of crack width in an integrated edge beam over a support, height of bridge deck when a pre-fabricated (brokappa) is used and a comparison in the magnitude of the clamping moment in a steel-concrete bridge with and without an edge beam. All proposals are presented by the Edge Beam Group (EBG, in Swedish, Kantbalksgruppen), which is composed of experienced engineers that works within the frame of the project social optimal edge beam systems governed by the Swedish Transport Administration. The literature research showed that even if the edge bean is prone to deteriorate its lifespan does not have to be governed by its condition. Planned expansion of bridge width and maintenance strategies including the replacement of waterproofing layer could also be a reason for replacement in some cases. A significant increase of reinforcement in the edge beam and top part of the bridge deck over support is needed to obtain an acceptable crack width of 0.15mm. This would however aggravate the casting phase. The use of a pre-fabricated edge beam result in an increase of the bridge deck height. A solution could be to strengthen the anchoring capacity but this could in turn give an over reinforced structure. When it comes to the clamping moment in a steelconcrete composite bridge the integrated edge beam leads to a better distribution of the traffic load. On the other hand, due to the higher dead weight, a bridge deck without an edge beam would result in a lower total moment in the cantilever.

In the past few years, some experimental investigations have been conducted to verify seismic behaviour of fiber reinforced polymer reinforced concrete (FRP-RC) beam-column joints. Those researches were mainly focused on exterior beam-column joints without lateral beams. However, lateral beams, commonly exist in buildings, can significantly improve seismic performance of the joints. Moreover, the way the longitudinal beam bars are anchored in the joint, either using headed-end or bent bars, was not adequately addressed. This study aims to fill these gaps and investigate the shear capacity of FRP-RC exterior beam-column joints confined with lateral beams, and the effect of beam reinforcement anchorage on their seismic behaviour. Six full-scale exterior beam-column joints were constructed and tested to failure under reversal cyclic loading. Test results showed that the presence of lateral beams significantly increased the shear capacity of the joints. Moreover, replacing bent bars with headed-end bars resulted in more ductile behaviour of the joints.

In the past few years, some experimental investigations have been conducted to verify seismic behaviour of fiber reinforced polymer reinforced concrete (FRP-RC) beam-column joints. Those researches were mainly focused on exterior beam-column joints without lateral beams. However, lateral beams, commonly exist in buildings, can significantly improve seismic performance of the joints. Moreover, the way the longitudinal beam bars are anchored in the joint, either using headed-end or bent bars, was not adequately addressed. This study aims to fill these gaps and investigate the shear capacity of FRP-RC exterior beam-column joints confined with lateral beams, and the effect of beam reinforcement anchorage on their seismic behaviour. Six full-scale exterior beam-column joints were constructed and tested to failure under reversal cyclic loading. Test results showed that the presence of lateral beams significantly increased the shear capacity of the joints. Moreover, replacing bent bars with headed-end bars resulted in more ductile behaviour of the joints.

Yes / A full-scale composite floor plate was tested to investigate the flexural behavior and in-plane effects of the floor slab in a grillage of composite beams that reduces the tendency for longitudinal splitting of the concrete slab along the line of the primary beams. This is important in cases where the steel decking is discontinuous when it is orientated parallel to the beams. In this case, it is important to demonstrate that the amount of transverse reinforcement required to transfer local forces from the shear connectors can be reduced relative to the requirements of Eurocode 4. The mechanism under study involved in-plane compression forces being developed in the slab due to the restraining action of the floor plate, which was held in position by the peripheral composite beams; while the secondary beams acted as transverse ties to resist the forces in the floor plate that would otherwise lead to splitting of the slab along the line of the primary beams. The tendency for cracking along the center line of the primary beam and at the peripheral beams was closely monitored. This is the first large floor plate test that has been carried out under laboratory conditions since the Cardington tests in the early 1990s, although those tests were not carried out to failure. This floor plate test was designed so that the longitudinal force transferred by the primary beams was relatively high (i.e., it was designed for full shear connection), but the transverse reinforcement was taken as the minimum of 0.2% of the concrete area. The test confirmed that the primary beams reached their plastic bending resistance despite the discontinuous decking and transverse reinforcement at the minimum percentage given in Eurocode 4. Based on this test, a reduction factor due to shear connectors at edge beams without U-bars is proposed.