Bridge Management—Determination of Allowable Cartage Loads for the Movement of Heavy Vehicles with a Platform Trailer on Concrete Bridges to Satisfy MCFT-Based Section Shear Adequacy

Load rating, using nominated rating vehicles by individual road authorities, is described in the Australian standard for bridge assessment, AS 5100.7, for all load effects, including shear. The load rating can be used to indicate the strength condition of bridges and to determine load posting for weak bridges. Thus, the information is useful for managing vehicle movements. However, for road authorities to accurately assess requested movements for a heavy vehicle with a prime mover and a platform trailer, additional information is required. This paper describes an approach employing a nonlinear search technique to determine the maximum allowable cartage loads of vehicles for various number of trailer axles up to that of a nominated load rating vehicle to ensure shear adequacy. A vehicle–bridge system has been analyzed considering a two-span bridge girder subject to a nominated rating vehicle. The calculated scaling factors for trailer loads corresponding to the total number of axles in the vehicle are presented. A platform table can then be created to assess the requested permits. The approach ensures full compliance with Modified Compression Field Theory (MCFT) as the section shear strength used for load rating is consistent with the load effects of the rating vehicle for the vehicle–bridge system under assessment.

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