Flexural & Fatigue Evaluation of Link Slab for Continuous Girder-Type Precast Modular Bridges

The modular technology has been already applied in automotive industry, plant and shipbuilding industry. Recently, the modular technology was applied in bridge construction. The modular bridge is different from the existing precast bridges in terms of standardized design that the detailed design of members is omitted by using the standard modules; the design of the modular bridge is completed by only assembling the standard modules without design in member level. The girder-type precast modular bridge has been developed as a simply supported bridge. The girder-type precast modular bridge could be applied to the multi-span bridges through the continuity method. The continuity of the girder-type precast modular bridge is achieved by using the link slab which is easy to construction and appropriate to the rapid construction. The link slabs have been used as the type of reinforced concrete structure in US from the 1950's. In 2000's, the link slab using the engineered cementitious concrete (ECC link slab) has been developed. In this study, the RC type link slab which is more reproducible and economic relative to the ECC link slab was used for the continuity of the girder-type precast modular bridges, and the construction detail of RC type link slab was modified. In addition, the modified iterative design method of RC type link slab was proposed in this study. To verify the proposed design method, the flexural tests were conducted using the RC type link slab specimens. Also, the fatigue test using the mock-up specimen was conducted with cyclic loading condition up to two million cycles.