UNCERTAINTY ANALYSIS OF CREEP AND SHRINKAGE EFFECT IN CONTINUOUS RIGID FRAME OF SUTONG BRIDGE

The creep and shrinkage are inherent characters of concrete, with many influencing factors, time-dependence and uncertainty. Long-span prestressed concrete continuous rigid framed bridges are sensitive to their creep and shrinkage. It is very important to accurately estimate and predicate the creep and shrinkage effect in long-span continuous rigid framed bridges. Based on a creep and shrinkage prediction model in the code for the bridge design and the experimental research on the creep and shrinkage of the high-strength and high-performance concrete used in the continuous rigid frame of Sutong Bridge, a revised prediction model for the concrete creep and shrinkage was presented. The results show that the accuracy of the prediction of the creep and shrinkage increases significantly. Subsequently, the probabilistic analysis method of the structural creep and shrinkage effect was studied. Moreover, Latin Hypercube Sampling Method was adopted to improve the sampling precision and decrease sampling number in random simulations. The uncertainty analysis of time-dependent effects in the continuous rigid frame of Sutong Bridge was performed using the revised model, and the calculated values were compared with measured results in the construction stage. At last, time-dependent deformations due to the concrete creep and shrinkage were analyzed.