Prestressed I-Beams of 12 m Span Made of Ultra-High Performance Concrete for Construction of Railway Bridges

This paper focuses on research of prestressed I-beams made of ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC), which are designed to be structural elements in small and medium span railway bridges. Prestressed concrete I-beams are designed with ten prestressing cables in the bottom flange. The prestressed beams are laid close together in the actual structure, with panels inserted between them. The entire structure will subsequently become monolithic. At the present time, I-beams made of rolled steel are commonly used as structural elements in this type of structure. The advantage of these types of structures lies in their having low construction height. This paper presents a computer and experimental analysis of loading of UHPC prestressed I-beams. For the purpose of the experiments, three specimens of 12 m span were made. The specimens were subsequently tested in the laboratory in four-point bending tests. The paper presents the process and results of the experiments. Simultaneously with the experiments, computer analyses were created in which optimization of the material and geometric parameters of the beams were carried out. The paper demonstrates the correspondence of the experimental and computer-simulated load test results.