DESIGN AND BEHAVIOUR OF THE SHERBROOKE FOOTBRIDGE by R. Adeline, M. Lachemi and P. Blais ‘Synopsis : The Sherbrooke Footbridge is the frst structure to be built with RPC. ‘This world Premiére brings innovation in several fields : the use of a new material, the absence of steel rebars and the design concept. Introducing a brand new innovation faces at least two difficulties on a technical point of view : to illustrate ‘hat this innovation brings in terms of performance and atthe same time to provide «8 sufficient safety level given the innovation aspect. This paper describes how these two goals were achieved in the design of the Sherbrooke Footbridge by detailing the chosen concept and the main characteristics of the structure. In the second part, it gives how some Keys points are being experimentally verified by a complete monitoring program of the footbridge. Keywords: footbridge, monitoring, prestressing, reactive powder concrete. Haake 1996Régis ADELINE, graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, is in charge of the development of Reactive Powder Conerete structures at the Bouygues’ Scientific department, France, Mohamed LACHEM is an adjunct professor of Civil Engineering atthe Université ‘de Sherbrooke. He received his MASc and PhD in structural engineering from that university. Pierte BLAIS, ftom Teknika Engineering Group, has over twenty years of experience in’ consulting engineering. He received his MASc in_ structural engineering from the Université de Sherbrooke DESCRIPTION OF THE FOOTBRIDGE ‘The 60 m-long simply-supported structure is an open-web space truss whose diagonals are made with RPC confined in thin-walled steel tubes (Fig. 1). The truss concept is well suited for RPC as it allows to reduce concrete volume without lowering rigidity : itis possible to design a ight structure in which the compressive strength of RPC can be fully used, ‘The current cross-section of the Sherbrooke footbridge is given in Fig, 2, The bottom flange is composed of two 320 * 380 mm beams linked every 5 meters by a deviator. The top flange is a thin slab 30-mm thick with transversal ribs every 1.25m, It is embedded in two longitudinal beams in which the diagonals are ‘connected. This slab is transversally prestressed. Connection between diagonals and beams is made with greased-sheathed monostrands and miniaturised anchorages especially developped by theVSL company.” In this type of structure, the global positive bending moment (due to dead weight and live load) results in compression in the upper beams and slab and tension in the lower beams. Here, the tension is counterbalanced by post-tensioning, The relevant shear force results in direct tension/compression in the diagonals. Once again the tension is counterbalanced by prestessing. All other secondary tensile cffects are counterbalanced by the fibers inside the material. In this project, the prestressing strands are 4” type with @ 1860 MPa steel grade, resulting in @ 182 kN ultimate load ‘The span is composed of six 10 m-long match-cast segments assembled on site by internal and extemal post-ensioning.* "00"KEY POINTS OF THE DESIGN Longitudinal behaviour For this first application, the choice was made to avoid any tension in diagonal ‘members atthe Service Limit State (SLS) and the Ultimate Limit State (ULS), and to have no tension in the lower beams at SLS. In the diagonals, space consideration limited the number of strands to two, that is a compressive force of 2 « 117.4 235.4 kN afer losses. As the shear foree induced inthe first four diagonals by dead foad and live load at ULS exceeded this level of 235.4 KN, it was necessary to reduce it by the effect of deviated prestressing. The stressing force of the 2 * 3 extemal cables (E1, E2, E3 on Fig. 1) was adjusted in order to achieve this goal, and resulted in the values given in Table 1 Internal cables were installed in the lower beams in order to provide a continuity between the segments and to avoid any tensile stress in these beams at SLS (Table 2). Although, it was not necessary, intemal prestessing wes also placed in the upper beams to fully tighten the structure. ‘The main characteristies concerning the longitudinal behaviour are summarised in Table 3, The truss concept allows to hhave at the same time a light structure with a high global rigidity, First Eigen fequency is then higher than 2.0 He. so that to avoid any comfort problem on the footbridge. It is noted that both top and lower beams dimensions were dictated by spaces considerations for prestressing, Furthermore, some margins on the tolerances and ‘covering were taken for this first application, In future projects and given the feedback experience it will be possible to reduce the whole dimensions of the ‘beams and to better use the characteristics of the material ‘Transverse design of the top slab ‘The slab has to support a 3.9 kN/m? live load and a de-icing and de-snowing ‘equipment (weight ; 2.6 tonnes). It was designed as being embedded in the top ‘beams and able to withstand a flexural tensile stresses of 12 MPa at ULS. This, constraint defined the amount of transverse prestressing (one 4” greased sheathed ‘monostrand every 1,25 meter). Shear and punching force was resisted directly by the material itself without any steel rebars. Design of the end-diaphragm End diaphragm is subjected to bending moment due the general deflection of the footbridge. It was then necessary to provide additional compression by two U- cables, surrounding the digphragm. Once again, space considerations were crucial in this design.‘The ducts had to avoid the anchorage of the extemal (top) and internal (bottom) prestressing. It resulted in a curvature radius of 800 mm that implied a specific sitessing sequence, Confined RPC ‘The diagonal members, which are subjected only to compression, were designed as thin steel tubes filled with confined RPC. The aim was to prove thatthe technology of confining RPC was industrially feasible and led to final products with a high performance and aesthetic quality. In this concept, RPC mainly withstands axial force, whereas steel_and partially RPC are used to withstand bending moment. But, in this project the bearing capacity of such confined members was not fully used, as the maximum compressive strength does not exceed 40 MPa. Mini Anchor head It is to underlined that the special mini anchor heads developed by VSL for the project had no bearing plate, RPC is able to resist compressive and tensile stresses eveloped behind the anchorage." It was then possible to design a longitudinal rb, in which the transverse tendons were anchored, whose height was only 100 mm, ‘Temporary prestressing ‘One of the key point of the design was the temporary prestressing necessary to lift the two half spans, As no space was available in the lower beams, the only solution ‘was to have a temporary tendon in the longitudinal axis. Anchoring this cable in a reduced central deviator made it necessary to verify that the shear force could be withstand by the material. A finite element calculation led to flexural stress of 15, MPa and a shear stress of 7 MPa at the interface deviator/beam. ‘These stresses could be taken by the material Connections ‘One of the major key point of the design was how to connect pre-cast pieces (Giagonal members) with top and bottom slab, without any passive reinforcement, ‘The choice was made to cross the tendons in the top beams so that shear forces are transmitted directly ffom one diagonal to the other (Fig. 3). Inthe bottom par, this design was not possible as no crossing was allowed in the joints between segments ‘The connection is then made by the longitudinal prestressing and efforts are being transmitted thanks tothe compressive stresses induced by this prestressing (Fig. 4), aINSTRUMENTATION AND MONITORING ‘The Sherbrooke footbridge has been extensively instrumented during fabrication and assembly processes. This calls for installing sensors for short and long-term ‘monitoring, making this project a testing bench for new technologies ‘The purpose of monitoring this particular bridge is to obtain field data and to gain better understanding of the behaviour of the structure under actual exposure conditions and loads. The extensive monitoring systems used for this project will provide important information about the performance of the material and the Structural concept under the very harsh Canadian environment conditions. With this knowledge, better design can be performed for RPC structures in the future, since the design ofthis one is not covered by any national code, ‘The monitoring program includes two distinct parts. The first one is related to the surveying operations which consist ofthe following activities ‘topographic levelling of the vertical configuration of the deck static load testing ofthe superstructure ; ‘dynamic load testing ofthe superstructure ‘The second part of the monitoring program includes the permanent measuring system incorporated in the structure, which purpose is to monitor ‘the response ofthe truss segments during the construction period ; ‘© the long-term behaviour ofthe bridge. ‘The measuring system is intended to carry out the following + Record temperature variations : through thermocouples placed within the RPC ‘elements at different sections. The ambient temperature is also monitored, ‘+ Measure strain in top and bottom RPC chords and in diagonals members (both in [RPC and stee! tubes) : This calls forthe use of vibrating wire strain gages due to their good long-term stability and reliability. The strain measurement includes also the use of optical fiber sensors put into the concrete during fabrication ‘+ Monitor deflections of the superstructure : since it was not possible to measure the deflections directly, it was decided to measure the rotation or tlt of the segments in order to derive deflections ofthe superstructure, For this purpose, a seties of clinometers was installed on the bottom chord of the truss segments. ‘+ Measure load in web members: direct measurement ofthe intensity ofthe foree in the tendons integrated in the web members is achieved using vibrating wire Toad cell + Record the prestressing force : Tensmeg sensors were installed on extemal tendons in order to record the presiressing force with time, ‘© Measure vibrations : for the dynamic testing it is expected to monitor the truss vibrations using accelerometers. ‘The long-term monitoring of the structure requires data to be read at regular intervals for long time. For this reason, the instruments found in the structure feed‘data logger with a modem link allowing to data from sensors to be remotely collected and compiled via a telephone line “The field results that have been obtained during construction as well as the load tests to be done during spring 98° will be presented in another paper.” CONCLUSION ‘The design of this first RPC structure aimed to introduce several innovations in ‘order to pave the way for designing future RPC structures and at the same time fo provide a sufficient safety factor. The main concept for designing this RPC Etructure was that primary tensile stresses, due to bending moment or direct tension, fare counterbalanced by prestressing whereas secondary tensile stresses are directly taken by RPC. Using a space truss design allowed to properly use RPC characteristics even if some improvements could now be made, given the feedback of ths first experience. Finally this world premigre has very innovative but nevertheless safe design. ‘Draw backs will allow to design more optimised structures in which all character its of the material are fully used, The main concem is about connections where it can be clearly seen that solutions are to be found in the design of steel structures. REFERENCES 1. Ganz, H.R, Adeline R. “Mini anchorages for Reactive Powder Coneret Intemational Conference on new technologies in structural engineering, Lisbon, Portugal, pp. 221-228, July 2-5, 1997, 2. Adeline, R, Cheyrey, M. “The Sherbooke Footbridge : the first RPC Structure,” La Technique Frangaise du Béton Précontraint, FIP 98", ‘Amsterdam, May 1998, 3. Lachemi, M., Bastien, J, Adeline, R., Ballivy, G., Aitein, PC. “Monitoring of the World’s First Reactive Powder Concrete Bridge,” The Intemational Conference on Short and Medium Span Bridges, Calgary, Canada, July 13-16, 1998.‘Table I~ Effect of the external prestressing on the shear force Hi = E Unit Sa Sf 37) ‘Siressing Rate (Fig) | 0.76 | 0.76 076 | Induced Shear Fore | T4 tonnes | 9ronnes | 12 tonnes ‘Table 2 - Stresses (in MPa) in the top and bottom beams at mid-spen Top beam Botiom beam Dead Load eae =126 Drestressing +43; B17 Live Load 108 107 SLS mi 15.71 484 SLS max $265 9.4 Table 3 - Characteristic values ‘Dead Load SaEN Tar Live Load, 39KN/m™ ‘Vertical Displacement 48mm under Live Load First Mode 245 Hz Pals 1998Fig. 1- General elevation and longitudinal prestressing, 2200 aa Se" oper ab 3000 iagonals {RPC confined in stainless stae! tubes) Fig, 2- Cross section rabite 1996Mini Anchorage : % oN Diagonal Fig. 3 - Connection of the diagonals in the top beams Diagonal Joint between Longin prestessing Mos Anchorage Fig. 4 Connection of the diagonals in the lower beams