Experimental and numerical study on large-curvature curved composite box girder under hogging moment

Curved steel-concrete composite box girder has been widely adopted in urban overpasses and ramp bridges. In order to investigate its mechanical behavior under complicated and combined bending, shear and torsion load, two large-curvature composite box girders with interior angles of 25 degrees and 45 degrees were tested under static hogging moment. Based on the strain and deflection measurement on critical cross-sections during the static loading test, the failure mode, cracking behavior, load-displacement relationship, and strain distribution in the steel plate and rebar were investigated in detail. The test result showed the large-curvature composite box girders exhibited notable shear lag in the concrete slab and steel girder. Also, the constraint torsion and distortion effect caused the stress measured at the inner side of the composite beam to be notably higher than that of the outer side. The strain distribution in the steel web was approximately linear; therefore, the assumption that the plane section remains plane was approximately validated based on strain measurement at steel web. Furthermore, the full-process non-linear elaborate finite element (FE) models of the two specimens were developed based on commercial FE software MSC.MARC. The modeling scheme and constitutive model were illustrated in detail. Based on the comparison between the FE model and test results, the FE model effectively simulated the failure mode, the load-displacement curve, and the strain development of longitudinal rebar and steel girder with sufficient accuracy. The comparison between the FE model and the test result validated the accuracy of the developed FE model.