Study on Mechanical Response and Structural Combination Design of Steel Bridge Deck Pavement Based on Multi-Scale...

Area of Science:

• Civil Engineering
• Materials Science
• Structural Engineering

Background:

• Steel bridge deck pavements (SBDPs) face complex mechanical and environmental challenges.
• Existing design methods struggle to integrate global bridge behavior with local pavement responses.

Purpose of the Study:

• Develop a multi-scale finite element modeling framework for SBDPs.
• Evaluate mechanical responses of various pavement configurations on an extra-long suspension bridge.

Main Methods:

• Integrated multi-scale finite element modeling (full-bridge, girder-segment, pavement submodels).
• Coupled global bridge deformations with local pavement submodels.
• Analyzed five pavement configurations: SMA, Epoxy Asphalt (EA), EA-SMA, and composite overlay.

Main Results:

• Pavement structures significantly alter stress and strain distributions in steel bridge decks.
• Composite overlay reduced interfacial shear stress but increased fatigue-risk tensile strain.
• Double-layer EA configuration showed lowest fatigue strain and superior deformation coordination.
• Optimized EA-SMA combination balanced fatigue control and interfacial stress.

Conclusions:

• The multi-scale approach is effective for SBDP analysis.
• Rational structural configuration selection, balancing layer stiffness and thickness, is critical for SBDP durability and performance.