Experimental and theoretical investigation of the shear lag effect in the novel non‑prismatic prestressed CSW-UHPC composite box girders

Due to their featured mechanical and structural merits, such as the light self-weight, excellent prestressing efficiency, appealing appearance, and optimal shear force and bending moment distributions in corrugated steel webs (CSWs) and concrete flanges, the prestressed concrete composite box girders with CSWs (CCBGCSWs) are popularly applied in highway bridges nowadays. To further enhance the cracking resistance of the concrete flanges of conventional prestressed CCBGCSWs, by replacing the regular concrete flanges with that made by ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC) (i.e., with the much superior mechanical properties), this paper proposed a novel non-prismatic prestressed CSW-UHPC composite box girder to achieve the lighter dead weight, superior spanning capacity, and more rapid and cost-efficient construction for highway bridges. Owing to the differences in both the geometric dimensions and material properties, shear lag behavior of the proposed novel non-prismatic prestressed CSW-UHPC composite box girder could significantly differ from that of conventional prestressed CCBGCSWs. The shear lag effect refers to the non-uniform distributions of the longitudinal bending normal stress within the flanges caused by shear interaction between the webs and flanges, and the improper consideration of the shear lag behavior would impair the safety of thin-walled CCBGCSWs, especially the proposed novel non-prismatic prestressed CSW-UHPC composite box girder. Therefore, to investigate the shear lag behavior of the proposed novel nonprismatic prestressed CSW-UHPC composite box girder during different construction stages, a representative test specimen (5.55 m in length) with different boundary conditions (e.g., simply supported and cantilever) was designed and investigated under five different loading cases using the experimental tests and finite element (FE) analyses. In addition, a modified bar simulation method was proposed for the theoretical analysis of the shear lag behavior of the girder, and its feasibility and effectiveness were demonstrated through the comparisons to the experimental and numerical results. Finally, the results indicated that (i) the shear lag effect of UHPC flanges in the stress concentration region of the proposed novel non-prismatic CSW-UHPC composite box girder was more pronounced than that in the non-stress concentration region under different loading conditions; (ii) the shear lag coefficient (λ) of UHPC flanges in the non-stress and stress concentrated regions of the girder could be conservatively recommended not less than 1.1 and 1.25, respectively; and (iii) the boundary conditions and loading forms had significant influences on the shear lag behavior of the girder. The results of this study could serve as the experimental, numerical, and theoretical references for the shear lag behavior of the novel non-prismatic prestressed CSW-UHPC composite box girders.

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Opracowanie rekordu ze środków MNiSW, umowa nr SONP/SP/546092/2022 w ramach programu "Społeczna odpowiedzialność nauki" - moduł: Popularyzacja nauki i promocja sportu (2024).