Feasibility Research on Lateral Widening of Voided Slab Bridge between RC Structures and PC Structures

Coupled with the rapid growth of auto ownership, traffic congestion in the expressway of China has become a more severe societal problem than ever. As an effective solution to traffic congestion, the need for highway and bridge widening has increased considerably. When the existing RC voided slab bridge is broadened, whether the new bridge could be constructed with PC voided slab structure or not, is a matter of interest and perplexity to designers. This paper presents the feasibility that whether these two types of voided slab bridges with different arrangement of bars could be spliced. The grid beam finite element method was utilized for structural analysis, and research results show that because of the higher stiffness of prestressed concrete structure, the lateral splice between PC voided slab bridge and RC voided slab bridge could help to improve the mechanical characteristic and reduce the internal forces and deformation of main existing beams obviously. So the lateral splice of these two different types of reinforced structures is feasible. This paper would provide a practical design proposal for bridge widening with different types of reinforced voided slabs in the future.