Composite deck construction for the rehabilitation of motorway bridges

Traffic decks of steel or composite motorway bridges sometimes provide the opportunity of using the composite action between an existing steel deck and a reinforced concrete plate (RC plate) in the process of rehabilitation, i.e., to increase the load-carrying capacity of the deck for concentrated traffic loads. The steel decks may be orthotropic decks or also unstiffened steel plates, which during the rehabilitation are connected with the RC plate by shear studs, such developing an improved local load distribution by the joint behaviour of the two plate elements. Investigations carried out, both experimentally and numerically, were performed in order to quantitatively assess the combined static behaviour and to qualitatively verify the usability of the structure for dynamic loading. The paper reports on the testing, the numerical simulation as well as the comparison of the results. Conclusions drawn for practical design indicated that the static behaviour of these structures may be very efficient and can also be analysed numerically. Further, the results gave evidence of a highly robust behaviour under fatigue equivalent cyclic traffic loading.