Prediction of temperature zoning for steel-concrete composite beams based on meteorological parameters in China

Since temperature effect on steel-concrete composite beam varies significantly across different regions, this study aims to investigate the regional differences and zoning of temperature action values due to solar exposure on steel-concrete composite beams. A steel-concrete composite beam for cable-stayed bridge in Guangdong province of China was taken as a practical engineering case to investigate its temperature field through field monitoring and numerical simulation. The measured temperature values demonstrated a good correlation with the results obtained from the finite element analysis, indicating the accuracy of the performed finite element method. The maximum vertical positive temperature difference (Tv) of steel-concrete composite beam was obtained by thermal analysis using the validated finite element model. The representative value (Td) of vertical temperature difference in steel-concrete composite beam was determined through extrapolation using generalized extreme value distribution function. The representative value of temperature difference (Td) in the 50-year return period of the maximum vertical positive temperature difference in steel-concrete composite beams is 17.61 °C. In addition, the representative values of vertical temperature difference in steel-concrete composite beams were preliminarily determined in 371 major cities of China. A calculation formula considering correlation between temperature difference and meteorological parameters was proposed to calculate the representative value of the temperature difference. Using the proposed formula, the temperature difference of steel-concrete composite beams in Chinese various regions were preliminarily divided into five regions. This study can provide a reference for the improvement of temperature values for steel-concrete composite beam bridges.