Discrete Shear Connection for a Portable Composite Bridge

To enable a portable composite bridge, a shear connection between steel plate girders and precast concrete deck panels, which would allow these two components to be fastened and unfastened, proposed. In the system, points of shear connection would be spaced at 3 m on center along the length of the girder. Finite element analysis was employed to compare the performance of the proposed composite system to a conventional composite girder with ductile shear studs. A nonlinear analysis was performed, and the proposed composite system was seen to demonstrate a response comparable to that of a composite girder with conventional shear studs. The model was verified for its capability to capture the possible effects of flange buckling, web buckling, and lateral torsional buckling of the steel plate girder. It was then confirmed that these failure modes did not influence the performance of the proposed portable composite bridge system for the investigated bridge configuration. A parametric study also was performed: the effects of shear connection stiffness and spacing on the behavior of the composite girder were investigated. In general, the investigated variations of these parameters had a significant influence on the girder stiffness but only a limited impact on the ultimate strength.