Review of Design of Highway Bridges: An LRFD Approach, 2nd Ed., by Richard M. Barker and Jay A. Puckett: Wiley, Hoboken, N.J.; 2007; ISBN: 0–471–69758–3; 1,009 pp. Price: $160.00.

This book contains eight chapters in a total of 1,009 pages. According to the authors, it is meant to be a textbook for senior-level undergraduate or first-year graduate civil engineering students. It is based on the AASHTO LRFD Bridge Design Specifications, 3rd Ed., and uses customary U.S. units. The first edition of this book used SI (Système International) throughout.

The first chapter includes a brief introduction to bridge engineering, followed by a brief history of bridges starting with the contributions of Roman engineers and reviewing the various American truss bridge concepts, suspension bridges, metal arch bridges, and reinforced concrete and girder bridges to the present. This chapter includes a short but interesting historical section on bridge specifications, both for highways and railroads. The concluding section on some of the more notable highway bridge failures is an instructive and well-written addition to this chapter.

The second chapter, “Aesthetics and Bridge Types,” covers most of the bridge types in existence today, including some guidelines for medium- and short-span bridges. This latter category of bridges is what this textbook is limited to as far as design is concerned.

“General Design Considerations” are covered in Chapter 3. Here the authors review general bridge design procedures, including a brief discussion of allowable stress design, and a more lengthy discussion of LRFD, including all its limit states. A fairly long section (some 26 pages) of this chapter is devoted to the principles of probabilistic design, including calibration of the current code. The chapter concludes with geometric design considerations.

Loads are covered in Chapter 4, in which the authors discuss the new AASHTO HL-93 design vehicle loads in detail by noting the basis for the choice and referencing respective theoretical and experimental studies. Also included are comparisons of the exclusion vehicles to the traditional HS20 load effects for moment and shear taken from the LRFD AASHTO code. All other loads—such as pedestrian loads, deck and railing loads, dynamic effects (impact factor), centrifugal forces, braking forces, lateral loads, a brief discussion of seismic loads, ice forces (in a fair amount of detail), and thermal forces—are presented and referenced in good detail.

Chapter 5, “Influence Functions and Girder-Line Analysis,” deals with the development of what is traditionally called influence lines for simply supported single-span beams and statically indeterminate beams. The development is lucid, detailed, and illustrated with 12 practical examples finally geared to the new truck/lane loading.

Chapter 6, “System Analysis,” provides guidelines on how a bridge may be modeled so as to be analyzed/designed in sufficient detail to be safe. Shortcomings of basic models are described. In a section on the beam-line method, the authors discuss the distribution factors, both past and present, and by means of several example problems illustrate the computation of current LRFD distribution factors for moment and shear. The beam-line method appears to be a procedure whereby the spatial dimensionality of the bridge system may be reduced to that of a beam by the use of distribution factors to determine how the vehicular load is distributed to the stringers. It is the method that we engineers have been using for years in the design of short bridges but did not know what to call it.

Since the distribution factors are approximate, the designer/analyst may wish to perform a more accurate analysis. To this end, the authors introduce other methods such as the grillage method, the finite-element method, the finite-strip method, the linear elastic method, and yield-line analysis. All of these methods are described and illustrated by means of example problems, and the results are compared. The chapter continues to box girder bridges, where structural idealization is described and methods such as beam-line and finite-element are used for computing distribution factors. Other topics included in this chapter are effects of temperature, shrinkage, and prestress and lateral load analysis, which includes wind and seismic. The section dealing with seismic analysis is well written, as are all of the other sections in this chapter; however, the authors state that seismic analysis and design are beyond the scope of this book, and the reader is referred to other references.

Chapter 7, “Concrete Bridges,” consists of 275 pages, actually a book all by itself. It is a very complete chapter that begins with basic properties of concrete and then addresses properties that are particular to bridges. This includes confined concrete compressive strength and behavior, as this applies to reinforced concrete piers. Tensile properties of concrete are considered next, after which we have long-term properties of concrete, creep and modulus of elasticity for permanent load, and properties of reinforcing and prestressing steel. Flexural strength of reinforced concrete members and prestressed members is developed in the context of the AASHTO 2004 bridge specifications. The section dealing with shear strength of reinforced concrete members includes the variable angle truss model, as well as the modified compression field theory, which, according to the authors, overcomes several shortcomings of the variable angle truss model. Several design examples are presented using this approach. An interesting section dealing with determining the strength of barriers when subjected to collision with vehicles is presented using the yield line approach. This chapter concludes with four example problems dealing with concrete deck design, solid slab bridge design, T-beam bridge design, and design of a prestressed concrete bridge.

Chapter 8, “Steel Bridges,” consists of 292 pages and, like the previous chapter, is also a book all by itself. It starts out by describing the steel-making process, production of finished products, classification of steels, important material properties, and the various limit states as described in the AASHTO code, as well as the design of tension, compression, and flexural members. All aspects of steel design as it pertains to steel bridges are treated in good detail using example problems. The chapter concludes with three detailed example problems: the noncomposite rolled steel beam bridge, the composite rolled steel beam bridge, and the multiple-span composite steel plate girder bridge.

Homework problems are provided at the end of all chapters except for chapters 6 and 8. Influence functions for deck analysis are included in Appendix A.