Analysis of shear capacity of prestressed concrete bridge girders

For the assessment of existing slab-between-girder bridges, the shear capacity and failure mode are under discussion. In particular, preliminary assessment calculations showed that the critical failure mode of the girders is shear-tension. In this paper, four girders taken from a demolished bridge that were tested in the lab are analyzed according to existing codes. The comparison between the experiments and the analysis shows that the Dutch RBK provisions are conservative and the ACI 318-19 provisions result in good predictions of the shear capacity at inclined cracking and at ultimate. These observations are then combined into recommendations for the assessment of prestressed concrete girders in existing slab-between-girder bridges for shear cracking and the ultimate shear capacity.