FIVE STEEL-FREE BRIDGE DECK SLABS IN CANADA

The Connestogo River Bridge was built in Ontario, Canada in 1975. It is believed to be the world's first bridge in which a concrete deck slab on longitudinal girders was designed by allowing for beneficial arching action in the slab. Successive versions of the Ontario Highway Bridge Design Code, from 1979 on, incorporated an empirical design method for deck slabs that considers their inherent arching action. Hundreds of deck slabs have been designed using this empirical method in Ontario and in other parts of the world. This paper describes five bridges in Canada, and discusses the good performance of their steel-free deck slabs; each bridge has a unique design feature. Experience strongly supports the conclusion that there is no need to calculate separating stresses in steel-free deck slabs; both the static and the fatigue strength of these slabs have been confirmed by tests on laboratory models. The Salmon River Bridge has two skew concrete slab spans, one with steel reinforcement and the other reinforced by polypropylene fibres. The Chatham Bridge is an old steel bridge with four spans. The Crowchild Trail Bridge has girders continuous over three spans. The Waterloo Creek Bridge has one span with precast concrete girders. The Lindquist Creek Bridge has panels without tensile reinforcement.