New structural forms of steel/concrete composite bridges have been developed for expressways in Japan and several applications to actual bridge projects are presented in this paper. Prestressed concrete bridges with corrugated steel webs or steel truss webs have been actively adopted, for the purpose of lightening the main girders, streamlining the construction work, and reducing construction cost. In other case, composite rigid frame bridges were developed in which rigid coupling is used to integrate steel girders and reinforced concrete piers or abutments with the head section of the substructure, so that the structure got the merits of boosting bearing capacity against earthquakes and reducing maintenance control cost. As another example, composite extra-dosed concrete bridges connected with steel box girders were constructed to reduce dead load. These characteristics of new bridge structures and some advanced technology for expressway bridges are introduced in this paper. (Author/publisher) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E208431.
Abstract