Field damage inspection and structural performance assessment of precast prestressed concrete I-girder bridge by adopting static analysis

The objectives of this study are to inspect structural member of bridge to identify any damage in these members, to analyze the internal forces in designed and service stage by adopting static analysis, to determine bending moment, vertical shear force, axial force, tensile stress, compression stress, and vertical deflection under effect of dead load, prestressed load, moving load, temperature load, and combination of these loads, to evaluate the structural performance of bridge structure. Bata bridge was selected as case study in this study which was located in Babylon province near center of Hilla city. Ver. 24 is used in the analysis of bridge structure model for static. The inspection process of structural damages for bridge structure show that there are many damages in the old bridge especially in the concrete deck, expansion joints, and abutments structure. The results of analysis showed that the span No. 1 of bridge structure suffers from higher values of positive bending moment, tensile stress, and downward vertical deflection than others spans, and lower values of compression stress and negative bending moment. After improvement of prestressed tendons, the values of vertical deflection of bridge structure were decreased by more than 50% according to values before improvement. In general, the structural performance of old bridge structure need to improve by using some methods of repairing and strengthening to decrease the tensile stress and downward vertical deflection. External prestressing tendons is suitable method in the state of old bridge.