ABSTRACT
Bridges today play a crucial role in modern transportation, connecting regions and facilitating smoother travel across rivers, valleys, and urban landscapes. The design of a bridge depends on factors like load type, span length, and shape, with each type optimized to meet specific functional and structural needs. Among the various bridge types, T-beam and box girder bridges are prominent for their strength and adaptability in supporting heavy loads. In this study, two-span T-beam and box girder bridges with span lengths of 40 m, 60 m, and 80 m were chosen to evaluate their performance under various loading conditions. These loads, which typically include dead load (the weight of the structure itself), vehicle load, torsion load, and wind load, are critical to understanding how a bridge withstands both static and dynamic forces. By simulating these forces in the SAP2000 software, the study aimed to gain insights into how each bridge type responds under different conditions.
The analysis focused on calculating bending moment values across different bridge sections with and without longitudinal beams, comparing the structural responses at various span lengths. By exploring five different length ratios for each span, this work assessed the effectiveness of each bridge superstructure, offering a comparative view of T-beam versus box girder bridges across the selected span lengths. The findings aim to identify the best-performing superstructure for each span length based on the recorded bending moments and other critical stress parameters. This data-driven approach not only underscores the importance of structural modeling in bridge design but also highlights how factors like span length and load distribution impact the stability, durability, and safety of bridge structures, helping engineers make informed decisions in bridge construction and maintenance.
