FLEXURAL BEHAVIOR OF HYBRID FRP-CONCRETE BRIDGE DECK SYSTEMS

This paper presents a new Concept for a hybrid FRP-concrete bridge superstructure system. Three rectangular GFRP box sections were bonded together to form the tensile layer, and a layer of concrete was placed in the compression zone of those sections. This new design is proposed in order to make the best of each constituent material, and to increase the stiffness of GFRP composite structures. This paper focuses on the finite element analysis (FEA) of the hybrid FRP-concrete bridge deck systems. A detailed finite element model was created to predict the static flexural behavior of the bridge superstructure under loads. Results from the FEA have shown that a linear FEA can accurately predict the static behavior of this new bridge superstructure under design live loads.