The Influence of Arch Flexibility On The Floor Deck Structural Characteristics For Composite Arch Steel Bridge

This paper presents an optimizing design for the floor deck for the composite arch steel bridge depending on the arch flexibility (the bridge’s main component). The design is based on second-order effects using nonlinear p-delta analysis. Many variables are considered in the parametric study, which is the arch’s in-plane flexibility, the out-of-plane flexibility of the arch, and the number and stiffness of the lateral bracing between the twin arches. The design has been done by graphical design software SAP2000 and based on AISC and AASHTO specifications. A numerical example is studded herein for the new proposed bridge of Batta in Al-Hilla city in Iraq which crossover Al-Hilla river for a width of 108m from bank to bank, the bridge has an overall width of 18 m including two lane-two way of 15.6 m width and walkways of 1.2 m on both sides. This study’s main objectives are the number and size of floor beams, deck thickness, and hence the overall weight of the bridge will be minimum, the goal of design is to select the lightest and most economical and practical composite floor decks. It has been concluded that the deflection decreases with the increase in the number of the floor beam, and the best result was the case of the distance between the floor beam is 1.95 m with a deflection of 71.95 mm, meaning that the flexibility is less as the number of floor beam increases. As for the change of the arch’s cross-section, the best result of the lesser girder deflection was in the case that the arch section with dimensions (0.8 x1.2x0.035) m. This indicates that the greater the moment of inertia, which leads to less deflection for cross over the main girder.