Experimental testing and numerical simulation of a temporary rescue bridge using GFRP composite materials

Abstract Typhoons and earthquakes, which occur frequently in Taiwan, often lead to the washout or collapse of cross-river bridges and cause stoppages to traffic. In order to restore traffic as soon as possible and to provide necessary emergency rescue services, a project was conducted at NCREE with the purpose of developing a type of temporary rescue bridge that is portable, reusable, and easily assembled by workers. A simply supported bridge assembled from five H-shaped Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) girders with a span length of 10 m was developed. To verify the feasibility of the proposed portable GFRP superstructure, the specimen was first erected in a practice assembly performed by unskilled students. In addition, a series of non-destructive tests were performed sequentially to assess its serviceability condition, followed by a destructive test to examine its ultimate capacity. Experimental results indicate that this bridge satisfied the live load deflection recommendation well with a deflection-to-span ratio of about 1/303, and a safety factor of 4 in strength. The assembly practice and the experimental results demonstrated the practicability of the proposed superstructure and showed a good possibility of utilizing this structure as a temporary rescue bridge. Furthermore, two linear finite element models of the laboratory tests were developed. The results from both models showed good correlation with the deflections and longitudinal strains measured during different service loading conditions.