Improvement of computational software for composite curved bridge analysis

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Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Mühendislik Fakültesi, İnşaat Mühendisliği Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2005

Öğrenci: AHMET SERHAT KALAYCI

Danışman: CEM TOPKAYA

Özet:

In highway bridge construction, composite curved girder bridges are becoming more popular recently. Reduced construction time, long span coverage, economics and aesthetics make them more popular than the other structural systems. Although there exist some methods for the analysis of such systems, each have shortcomings. The use of Finite Element Method (FEM) among these methods is limited except in the academic environments. The use of commercial FEM software packages in the analysis of such systems is cumbersome as it takes too much time to form a model. Considering such problems a computational software was developed called UTRAP in 2002 which analyzes bridges for construction loads by taking into account the early age deck concrete. As the topic of this thesis work, this program was restructured and new features were added. In the following thesis work, the program structure, modeling considerations and recommendations are discussed together with the parametric studies.