Performance of reinforced concrete bridges strengthened with Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymers : Case study: Essinge Bridge over Pampaslänken

Sammanfattning: This master thesis deals with the performance of existing reinforced concrete bridges strengthened with externally bonded carbon fibre reinforced polymers (CFRP). One of the main aims of this work is to understand the functionality of such an external strengthening method applied to a concave surface in a heavy concrete structure such as a bridge. Another important goal is to investigate the bond behavior of this method. To accomplish the aforementioned aims a case study bridge is chosen to be examined. The Essinge bridge located in the central Stockholm, is the selected bridge in which this report will focus on. Externally strengthening an existing bridge is a method used to both preserve as well as improve the existing structure. Some examples justifying the need to use such a technique are: the degradation of materials or changes in the bearing capacity of the structure which might be the result of increased traffic loads. In the case of Essinge bridge, the structure is strengthened with externally bonded CFRP sheets after the extension of the bridge which led to changes in the statical mode of action of the structure. An additional reason which makes this case interesting to study is the ’’concave’’ surface on which the CFRP sheets are applied to. To study the Essinge bridge in detail, both a numerical analysis and a three-dimensional finite element model is used. All the numerical simulations are performed in the Abaqus software. It is important to mention that for the majority of the simulations a two-axle vehicle load of 300kN (per axle) is applied to the structure. Moreover, a quality assurance of the FE model is carried out to verify the functionality of the model. Some of the results coming from these analyses can be compared with measurements from the monitoring system placed on the bridge. Moreover, other simulation results could be compared with results coming from a test loading performed on the bridge on May 2021. From this comparison, a satisfactory agreement could be found in the peak values of normal strain in concrete and CFRP. Due to time limitations, only linear static analyses are performed. Consequently, in order to capture the non-linearity of the concrete, the Extended Finite Element Method (XFEM) available in Abaqus is used to model a possible crack in the concrete. More specifically, the crack is placed in the concrete part of the deck plate where the maximum value of normal stress is obtained. The bond behavior between the concrete and the CFRP sheets is modelled in two different ways. The first way represents a ’’perfect’’ bond between these two materials meanwhile the second one is based on the so-called Cohesive Zone Method (CZM). The fundamental difference between these two methods is that when using the CZM, a possible failure mode in the bond layer can be captured. Moreover, the input data and parameters defined in the CZM have a detrimental role in the obtained results. It can be noted that the results of the case study bridge cannot be generalized. On the other hand, a better understanding about the external strengthening method implemented on the example of Essinge bridge is obtained. By using the CZM, a vehicle load which could initiate damage in the bond layer could be found.