Measurement of Truck Axle Weights by Instrumenting Longitudinal Ribs of Orthotropic Bridge
Publication: Journal of Bridge Engineering
Volume 11, Issue 5
Abstract
The longitudinal ribs of an orthotropic box-girder bridge were instrumented to measure axle weights of trucks. The bending stress in the longitudinal rib is composed of a girder component, i.e., the flexural stress due to the rib’s function as part of the box-girder’s upper flange in carrying vehicles, and a rib component, i.e., the part of stress produced in the rib when it is viewed as a continuous beam supporting wheel loads. The instrumentation locations were set close to the middle support of the two-span continuous bridge to reduce girder component and impact effect. All possible wheel-supporting ribs inside the box girder were instrumented to cover most transverse locations of truck wheels. Deviating passes as well as central passes were carried out for each traffic lane in calibration tests to catch maximum stress response. The results of the calibration tests were used to solve the influence lines of the girder component and rib component at each strain gauge. With these influence lines, the rib component was separated from girder one in the stress waves of the live traffic measurements, and axle weights of the truck traffic were subsequently calculated.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
Cousins, T. E., Stallings, J. M., Lower, D. A., and Stafford, T. E. (1998). “Field evaluation of fatigue cracking in diaphragm-girder connections.” J. Perform. Constr. Facil., 12(1), 25–32.
Japan Road Association (JRA). (2002). Fatigue design specifications for steel bridges, Tokyo (in Japanese).
Miki, C., Meta, M., Murakoshi, J., and Yoshimura, S. (1987). “Estimation of weight of moving trucks.” Bridge Found. Eng., 21(4), 41–45 (in Japanese).
Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport (MLIT). (1995). Road traffic census 1994, Tokyo.
Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport (MLIT). (1998). Road traffic census 1997, Tokyo.
Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport (MLIT). (2000). Road traffic census 1999, Tokyo.
Moses, F. (1979). “Weigh-in-motion system using instrumented bridges.” Transp. Eng. J. ASCE, 105(3), 233–249.
Ojio, T., Yamada, K., Kobayashi, N., and Mizuno, Y. (2001). “Development of bridge weigh-in-motion system using stringers of steel plate girder bridge.” J. Struct. Eng., JSCE, 47A, 1083–1091 (in Japanese).
Roeder, C. W., MacRae, G., Crocker, P., Arima, K., and Wong, S. (2000). “Dynamic response and fatigue of steel tied-arch bridge.” J. Bridge Eng., 5(1), 14–21.
Xiao, Z. G., and Yamada, K. (2006). “Fatigue cracks in longitudinal ribs of steel orthotropic deck.” Int. J. Fatigue, 28(4), 409–416.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2006 ASCE.
History
Received: Jan 3, 2005
Accepted: Jun 14, 2005
Published online: Sep 1, 2006
Published in print: Sep 2006
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.