SAFETY LEVEL OF PRECAST PRESTRESSED CONCRETE BRIDGE GIRDERS

The main aim of the book is to evaluate the safety level of Turkish type precast prestressed concrete bridge girders designed according to AASHTO LRFD based on reliability theory. Two types of design truck loading models are taken into account: H30S24-current design live load of Turkey and HL93-design live load model of AASHTO LRFD. The statistical parameters of both load and resistance components are estimated from local data and published data in the literature. The girders are designed according to the requirements of both Service III and Strength I limit states. The reliability indexes are calculated by different methods for both Strength I and Service III limit states. The reliability level of typical girders of Turkey is compared with those of others countries. Different load and resistance factors are intended to achieve the selected target reliability levels. For the studied cases, a set of load factors corresponding to different levels of reliability index are suggested for the two models of truck design loads.