Seismic Performance of Precast Prestressed Concrete Bridge Girders Using Field-Cast Ultrahigh-Performance Concrete Connections

Precast concrete bridges have many advantages over cast-in-place construction. Prefabrication typically requires less time at the site due to the ease of installation. Furthermore, production in a controlled environment can result in higher bridge quality. However, the quality of field connections is a key challenge in ensuring the integrity of the bridge seismic performance. A Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) research project conducted at the University at Buffalo in 2012 using ultrahigh-performance concrete (UHPC) to evaluate the suitability of deck-level connections between precast prestressed concrete bridge girders is reported in this paper. The structural performance of the UHPC connections has been investigated by both cyclic and static loading tests at the FHWA Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center. This paper discusses the results of a shake table study on the seismic performance of two full-scale prestressed girders connected with UHPC. The main objective of this experimental study was to observe the seismic performances of the UHPC connection between two bridge girders to assess the applicability of using UHPC-connected precast bridge girders in moderate to high earthquake regions. The experimental results show that the use of a UHPC connection with straight rebar protruding from the prestressed girders provided adequate resilience even under high-level earthquake ground motions.