Structural Performance of a Hybrid FRP-Aluminum Modular Triangular Truss System Subjected to Various Loading Conditions

A novel hybrid FRP-aluminum truss system has been employed in a two-rut modular bridge superstructure composed of twin inverted triangular trusses. The actual flexural behavior of a one-rut truss has been previously investigated under the on-axis loading test; however, the structural performance of...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Dongdong Zhang, Yaxin Huang, Qilin Zhao, Fei Li, Feng Li, Yifeng Gao
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2014-01-01
Series:The Scientific World Journal
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/615927
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:A novel hybrid FRP-aluminum truss system has been employed in a two-rut modular bridge superstructure composed of twin inverted triangular trusses. The actual flexural behavior of a one-rut truss has been previously investigated under the on-axis loading test; however, the structural performance of the one-rut truss subjected to an off-axis load is still not fully understood. In this paper, a geometrical linear finite element model is introduced and validated by the on-axis loading test; the structural performance of the one-rut truss subjected to off-axis load was numerically obtained; the dissimilarities of the structural performance between the two different loading cases are investigated in detail. The results indicated that (1) the structural behavior of the off-axis load differs from that of the on-axis load, and the off-axis load is the critical loading condition controlling the structural performance of the triangular truss; (2) under the off-axis load, the FRP trussed members and connectors bear certain out-of-plane bending moments and are subjected to a complicated stress state; and (3) the stress state of these members does not match that of the initial design, and optimization for the redesign of these members is needed, especially for the pretightened teeth connectors.
ISSN:2356-6140
1537-744X