Construction, testing and monitoring of FRP reinforced concrete bridges in North America

This paper presents the construction details, testing, and monitoring results of three FRP reinforced concrete bridges recently constructed in North America. Two bridges, Wotton Bridge and Magog Bridge, are located in Quebec, Canada while the third one, Morristown Bridge, is located in Vermont, USA. All three bridges are girder-type with main girders made of either steel or prestressed concrete. The main girders are simply supported over spans ranging from 26.2 to 43.0 m. The deck is a 200 to 230 mm thickness concrete slab continuous over spans of 2.30 to 2.85 m. Different types and reinforcement ratios of FRP bars as well as conventional steel were used as reinforcement for the concrete deck. Furthermore, the three bridges are located on different highway categories, which means different traffic and environments (frequency of using de-icing salts). The bridges are well instrumented at critical locations for internal temperature and strain data collection using fibre optic sensors. These gauges are used to monitor the deck behaviour from the time of construction to several years after completion of construction. One of the bridges, Wotton Bridge, was tested for service performance using standard truckloads as specified by the new Canadian Highway Bridge Design Code (2000). The other two bridges are scheduled for similar tests during fall 2002. The construction procedure, field tests and monitoring results, under real service conditions, showed very competitive performance to concrete bridges reinforced with steel.