The impact of a PEER funded research project "Refined Bridge Deck Design and Analysis" is highlighted below. The project Principal Investigator (PI) is Lijuan “Dawn” Cheng, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UC Davis. The Research Team includes Xun “Clay” Wang, Graduate Student Researcher, UC Davis.
Download the Research Project Highlight which includes the abstract (PDF)
Research Impact:
The work in this research will provide an updated LRFD-based bridge deck design procedure based on refined analysis that considers the modern vehicle configurations, dynamic (rolling) loads, flexural and shear demands, and concrete fatigue. The potential broad impacts of this work in the engineering design and evaluation of our nation’s infrastructure include: (1) Increased cost savings by going beyond use of approximate, simplistic and conservative design methods in the existing specs; (2) Improved structural safety by more rigorous assessment of required modern loads and accurate modeling of system/local behavior; (3) Enhanced safety evaluation by full consideration of deck flexural, shear, torsion and fatigue; (4) Accomplishing sustainability by more frequent salvaging of existing infrastructures; and (5) Promoting a fundamental change in the practice of bridge engineering and industry from use of simplistic design formulae to achieve more optimal design solutions via innovation development.
Therefore, the final product of this work is of particular interest to industry, Caltrans and other State DOT design engineers, bridge maintenance personnel, contractors, and specialty subcontractors such as inspection and repair crews.