Comparative analysis for monitoring long-term behavior of box girder bridges in Colombia

The use of prestressed concrete (PSC) box girder bridges built by segmentally balanced cast-in-place cantilevers has spread massively due to noticeable advantages over traditional. However, excessive deflections have been observed in 10-years old constructed bridges worldwide which have been designed based on old international code standards that underestimated rheological effects. To guarantee 100-year design life of bridges, it is necessary to have a periodic monitoring system that validates in-service performance. In Colombia there is a necessity to study in-service performance of this type of bridges after its construction, which is the main solution for structures with spans ranging from 80 m to 200 m, therefore this study seeks to propose a procedure to estimate the long-time behavior of box girder bridges in Colombia considering construction data scarcity. Therefore, altimetry data measured from a newly constructed bridge is collected, and the rheological effects of the structure are predicted using models previously developed and validated. Finally, a comparative analysis is carried out and guidelines are provided to propose a practical monitoring framework that guarantees adequate in-service bridge performance.