Critical response analysis of steel deck pavement based on viscoelastic finite element model

Orthotropic steel deck (OSD) bridges have gained increasing popularity around the world and the steel deck pavement is essential to extend the service life of the bridge. To optimise the design method for OSD pavements, this study evaluated the critical response of this type of pavement using the viscoelastic finite element (FE) model. Firstly, the FE model was elaborated and comprehensively complemented with field strain measurements to simulate the OSD pavement response. Secondly, the critical responses including critical strain, shear stress and deflection of the OSD pavement under various loading and pavement conditions were predicted via the proposed model. It was found that in FE model, a moving load better simulated the field truck loading than a pulse one, while quasi-static and dynamic analysis algorithms provided nearly identical response predictions. The positions of critical horizontal strains were temperature-dependent. Critical strains and deflections dropped with the load motion speed and rose with temperature, while the critical shear stresses exhibited the opposite trend. Moreover, the investigated three types of critical responses were found to be similarly influenced by the layer thickness variation but showed different patterns under varying bonding conditions.