A Comparative Analysis of Grillage Method and Beam Line Analysis of a Reinforced Concrete Waffle Bridge Deck

Abstract

Abstract The analysis of a reinforced concrete waffle bridge deck using Chanchaga Bridge as a case study was carried out with the aid of computer programme written in MATLAB. The bridge deck which is a beam bridge was idealized to be a waffle slab. A mathematical model of the bridge was developed using the method of grillages because very complex shapes of problem domain with prescribed conditions can be handled easily using the method. The bridge deck was modelled as interconnection of grid elements. The analysis was carried out using direct stiffness matrix method. The nodal displacements and the resulting static internal forces; shear forces, bending moments and twisting moments of each grid element were determined using the matrix. The results obtained using the method of grillages were then compared with beam line analysis and the former method gave a 10% decrease in forces which will result in the reduction of overall design and materials by 10%.