Investigation of more than seventy highway bridges revealed that multisimple-span skew bridges with expansion joints were very common in Turkish practice. The expansion joints, used to provide deck expansion against shrinkage, creep and thermal effects, create costly maintenance problems due to leaked water, impact loads and accumulated debris in the joints. Therefore, elimination of expansion joints decreases the maintenance cost for the bridges. Reinforced concrete link slabs provide continuity at the deck level with the elimination of expansion joints. This thesis focuses on evaluating the seismic behavior of the skew multisimple-span bridges in Turkey and also discusses the use of reinforced concrete link slabs as a seismic retrofit option. The effects of addition of link slab and varying skew angle on the performance of the bridges were investigated. The use of link slabs can provide a better seismic displacement control, can decrease the member forces and can prevent or reduce deterioration of the top of the piers and ends of the girders from the water and chemical leakage by abandoning or minimizing number of expansion joints.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:METU/oai:etd.lib.metu.edu.tr:http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12608147/index.pdf |
| Date | 01 January 2007 |
| Creators | Sevgili, Gizem |
| Contributors | Caner, Alp |
| Publisher | METU |
| Source Sets | Middle East Technical Univ. |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | M.S. Thesis |
| Format | text/pdf |
| Rights | To liberate the content for public access |
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