10(2013) 247 – 262

Transverse load distribution of skew cast-in-place concrete

multicell box - girder bridges subjected to traffic condition
Abstract Iman Mohseni* and
Concrete multicell box-girder bridges are a common choice among A. Khalim Rashid
the designers for various ranges of bridges. In order to provide safer
and greater speed of traffic, the roadway is built as straight as possi- Department of Civil Engineering, Universiti
ble. The use of skewed bridges has increased considerably in the Kebangsaan Malaysia (National University of
recent years for roadway. The skewed bridges have quite different Malaysia), UKM, Bangi, Selangor, 43600,
mechanical behavior from the straight bridges, although for skew Malaysia
angles less than 20 degrees, it is reasonably safe to ignore the effect
of skew angles and analyze that at the straight bridge. In this study,
Received 22 Nov 2011
in developing an analytical solution, an extensive parametric study
In revised form 25 Aug 2012
was carried out to determine the maximum positive and negative
stress distribution factors and to calculate the maximum distribution
factor of deflection along the mid-span of skewed multicell box- Author email: mohseni@eng.ukm.my
*

girder bridges. A total of 240 representative bridges numerical mod-

els were selected and analyzed using SAP2000 finite element soft-
ware. It was found that the span length, number of boxes, number of
lanes and skew angles significantly affected the distribution factors
of stress and deflection. Finally, several equations were proposed for
stress and deflection distribution factors of multicell box-girder
bridges for the application of American Association of State Highway
and Transportation officials load and resistance factor design live
loads.

Keywords
Skewed bridges, Vehicle, Load distribution factor, Finite element
analysis

1 INTRODUCTION
Concrete multicell box-girder bridges (MCB) are the most common type of highway bridges (Song et al.,
2003). These bridges have excellent torsional and stiffness, equipped with elegance. The MCB bridges
can be built as skew bridges in large urban areas to meet several requirements, including natural or
man-made obstacles, complex intersections and space limitations. Although advanced computer tech-
niques can determine the effect of vehicle loads (Lin and Weng, 2004) and distribution of live loads in
concrete bridges, until recently, the original “s-over” equations in the American Association of State
Highway and Transportation officials (AASHTO, 2002) are used for the calculation of live load distribu-
tion factor of skewed bridges. The “s-over” equations are developed for straight bridges and the effects
of skew angle and continuity are not included in this code. Such simplification leads to very conserva-
tive results for long span bridges, and to unsafe results for short span bridges (Huang et al., 2004; Huo
and Zhang, 2008; Sotelino et al., 2004). Several investigations have been carried out to find the effect of
skew angle on the live load distribution factor. Ebeido and Kennedy (Ebeido and Kennedy, 1996) ob-
served that as skew angle was less than 30 degrees, neglecting the effect of skew angle was considered
248 I. Mohseni et al / Transverse load distribution of skew cast-in-place concrete multicell box

safe and bridge could be design as right bridge. Some researchers suggest new equations of live load
distribution factor for moment and shear based on the data generated from the parametric study on
skew continuous slab on girder bridges (Bishara et al., 1993; Khaleel and Itani, 1990). Recent investi-
gation indicated that, however, the effect of secondary components were not taken into account in cur-
rent bridge design standards, the presence of intermediate diaphragms (ID) highly influence shear and
moment distribution factor of skewed bridges (Barr et al., 2001; Cai et al., 2009; Khaloo and Mirzabo-
zorg, 2003; Li and Ma, 2010).
In addition, American Association of State Highway and Transportation officials load and resistance
factor design (AASHTO, 2008) takes into account more bridge parameters than the AASHTO standard
(AASHTO, 2002) and includes several extensions to basic distribution factor, such as continuity and the
skew effect. For instance, the AASHTO LRFD specification presented several skew correction factor
(SCF) expressions for shear and moment distribution factors of skewed bridges, however, the accuracy
of those is still questionable (Huo et al., 2003; Zhang, 2008). To develop the preciseness of LRFD formu-
las for distribution factor, Zhang (Zhang, 2008) proposed new skew correction factor expressions for
various types of bridge cross sections.
In addition, concrete bridges are expected to crack in the tensile and extreme deflection regions, un-
der heavy truck load conditions and, therefore, the proper reinforcement with high tensile strength
material must be provide. To this purpose, the stress and deflection distribution of bridges on trans-
verse and longitudinal direction should be determined. Although many investigations were performed
to predict the live load distribution factor of skewed bridges, only limited numbers concentrated on
determining the maximum distribution of tensile and compressive stress, and deflection of skewed
bridges. In many bridge design procedure, the maximum positive and negative stress of bridges are
obtain using the corresponding moment distribution factor formulas in corresponding cross sections. It
should be noted that maximum tensile and compressive stress on the cross section are indeed localized,
while the moment distribution factors formulas were obtained based on uniformly distribution of
stress on bridge cross section. Since, in the most cases, specification’s formulas provide highly con-
servative or unconservative results for stress distribution factor (Zoghi et al., 2008).
The main aim of this study is to investigate the maximum deflection, tensile and compressive stress
distribution factor of concrete continuous skewed MCB bridges. A parametric study is performed on
240 prototype bridges to determine effective parameters on live load distribution factor of bridges. The
parameters investigated included: skew angle, span length, number of box and number of lane. Using a
statistical approach several empirical equations are deduced to determine maximum distribution factor
of stress and deflection of skewed MCB bridges subjected to the AASHTO LRFD truck loads.

2 GEOMETRY AND DETAILS OF BRIDGE MODELS

In order to develop the live load distribution factor (LDF), a parametric study was carried out on 240
prototype skewed multicell box-girder bridges with various parameters. This parametric study covered
a broad range of bridge properties found in practice. Nevertheless, only the parameters of superstruc-
ture were used in this study and the variation in substructure was not included in any of the finite ele-
ment models. The span length of skewed MCB bridges measured along an unsupported edge of the
bridges in plan is called the skew span, while the perpendicular distance between the supported lines is
called the right span (Gupta and Misra, 2006). Fig. 1 shows the typical cross-sectional symbols for W, B,
d, and L C in Table 1. The bridge properties used for this scope were: (1) the skew span length, L; (2)
number of boxes, N B ; (3) number of loaded lanes, N L ; and (4) skew angle, θ. The practical ranges of
these parameters were selected using a span-to-depth ratio of 24, which has been observed to be the
most economical (Hall et al., 1999; Heins, 1978). A preliminary investigation in this study showed that
the changing the cross section of intermediate diaphragm and slab thickness had an insignificant effect

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on the live load distribution factor of the MCB bridges. For all bridges used in this study, the modules of
elasticity E of concrete and Poisson’s ratio υ were 22.80 GPa and 0.2, respectively.

3 BRIDGE NUMERICAL MODELING

The comercial finite element analysis program, SAP2000 version 12, was used in this study. A four
node three dimensional shell element with six degree of freedom at each node were used to model the
prototype multicell box-girder bridges. Top and bottom shell element of web are integrated with the
top and bottom slab at connection points to ensure compatibility of deformation. The transvers solid
diaphragms at supports were modeled using the same element with the size and properties of desig-
nated diaphragms (Huo et al., 2005). Fig. 3 illustrates a typical finite elemet mesh used in analyses of a
four-cell MCB bridge.
The effect of bearing and piers on the live load distribution of skewed bridges have been investigat-
ed by many researchers (Chun, 2010; Dicleli and Erhan, 2009; Eom and Nowak, 2001; Suksawang and
Nassif, 2007). It was observed that piers and bearing would not be affected by the live load in the finite
element analysis, and that simulating boundary condition by hinge-roller supports can predict the
bridge behavior properly. Therefore, in the presented study, only the superstructure of bridges was
modeled and the effect of bearing and piers were neglected. The first abutment was treated as a hinge,
at the bottom of each web, which resist both vertical and lateral displacement and all other supports
were treats as roller, at the bottom of each web, with prevents only vertical translation.
Validations of the bridge modeling used in this study were performed. The criterion used for this
verification was compared to Bridge No.14 of NCHR Project 12-18 (Huo et al., 2003). The comparison
of the live load moment and shear distribution factor as shown in Fig. 4 indicated good agreement be-
tween the numerical modeling and the mentioned project (Table 2). Based on this validation, the same
finite element modeling was used to analyze more of the MCB bridge models.

Table 1 Parameters Considered in the Parametric Study (in Si Unit)

set L(m) Nb Nl W(m) d’ d” B LC θ

1 30, 45, 60, 75, 2 1,2 9.10 0.20 0.15 3.80 0.610 0,30,45,60
90 3 2.53 0.610

2 5.82 1.19
2 30, 45, 60, 75, 3 2,3 14.0 0.20 0.15 3.88 1.19 0,30,45,60
90 4 2.90 1.19

3 4.72 1.45
3 30, 45, 60, 75, 4 2,3,4 17.0 0.20 0.15 3.54 1.45 0,30,45,60
90 5 2.83 1.45
6 2.36 1.45

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Figure 1 Cross Section Symbols for three Boxes Bridge Figure 2 Typical Idealized box Bridges

Figure 3 Typical finite element mesh of a four-cell MCB bridge

(a) Plan view (b) cross section

Figure 4 Plan View and Cross Section of Bridge No. 14 of comparative model (Huo et al., 2003)

Table 2 Comparison of Distribution Factor obtained from numerical modeling and those from NCHRP project 12-28 for bridge No.14

Shear D.F Shear D.F Moment D.F Moment D.F

Method Ex- girder In- girder Ex- girder In- girder

Project 1218 0.975 0.866 0.665 0.440

SAP 2000 0.939 0.860 0.680 0.450

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Error (%) 3.70 0.70 2.20 2.32

(Ex= Exterior and In= Interior)

4 LOADING CONDITION
The vehicular live loads, designated as HL 93, used in this study were based on the load specified by the
American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO, 2008). The designated
HL 93, which consists of a design truck plus design lane load or the design tandem plus lane load,
whichever governs, was used in this study to calculate the maximum positive stress and the negative
stress at the pier of bridges. A case with 90% of two trucks spaced a minimum distance of 15.20 meter
apart in the longitudinal direction plus 90% lane load was used to determine the maximum compres-
sive stress at pies. . Fortunately, the SAP2000 has certain feature of AASHTO LRFD, HL vehicular live
loads applies only to certain types of bridge response, such as negative and positive stresses or deflec-
tion along the span. According to AASHTO LRFD, multiple present factors of 1.00, 0.85 and 0.65 for two,
three, and four lane loadings, respectively, were also applied. Using the FEA for the three-dimensional
bridges, the maximum stress and deflection were obtained by positioning the wheel loads at a distance
of 0.61 meter from the curb edge of the bridge and then moving all live loads foot by foot in transverse
direction. The live loads were applied according to the number of lanes as shown in Table 1. The loca-
tion of live loads in the transverse direction of bridges is shown in Fig. 5. The adjacent wheel lines of the
two trucks were placed 1.20 meter apart from each other.

(a) Two lanes bridge (b) Three lanes bridge (c) Four Lanes Bridge

Figure 5 LRFD HL93 loading cases in the transverse direction of the bridges for two, three and four lane loading

5 STRESS DISTRIBUTION ON MCB BRIDGES

To determine the tensile and compressive distribution factor of skewed MCB bridges, it was necessary
to find the location of maximum stress at both longitudinal and transvers directions of bridge super-
structures. Fig 6 shows the variations in the normal stress distribution of a four-box prototype MCB
bridges with and without skew angle. The vertical and horizontal axes represented normal stress and
longitudinal direction, respectively. In addition, the positive values represent tensile stress, while the
negative stress values in the figured are compressive stress. It can be observed that the maximum ten-
sile stress (positive stress) for non-skewed bridge is obtained on the bottom slab at the mid-span and
the maximum compressive stress (negative stress) is occurred over the intermediate supports of su-
perstructure.

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Figure 6 distribution of stress on longitudinal direction of the four-box bridge

Figure 7 Normal stress distribution on transverse direction of four Boxes Bridge

For skewed bridges, the maximum compressive stress takes place at the intermediate support line,
in the same way as straight bridges, but the maximum tensile stress occurs at the section which passes
through the center of each lane and is parallel to skewed abutment. Moreover, the maximum tensile
stress of skewed MCB bridges is obviously higher than right ones because of intensifying effect of tor-
sion in high skewed bridges and also changing the load path in skewed bridges (refer to Fig. 6).
Fig. 7 shows the variations of maximum tensile and compressive stresses in the bottom slab (lowest
fiber) of the mid-span and intermediate support line of selected bridge. It can be seen that the largest
stress are all located in the intersection of webs, bottom slab and diaphragm. The same trend is ob-
served in skewed MCB bridges.

6 DISTRIBUTION FACTOR
Lateral distribution of the live loads is a major component of bridge design and control. The live load
distribution factor (LDF) is commonly obtained as follows (Barker and Puckett, 1997):

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(1)

Where F refined corresponds to the largest live loads in the girder from the refined methods; while F beamline
corresponds to the maximum live loads from a simple beam-line model subjected to one lane of traffic. To
determine the LDF of multicell box-girder bridges, the cross section was idealized by an equivalent I-beam,
including the same size and properties of the skewed MCB bridges, as shown in Fig. 2. Each idealized beam
includes one web, as well as bottom and top flanges. According to Eq. (1), the distribution factor of positive
( Dσ po ) and negative ( Dσ ne ) stresses and maximum deflection distribution ( Dδ s ) were obtained by
dividing the maximum response of the finite element models with the largest response from one of the
idealized girders with a single lane of traffic.

(a) Positive Stress Distribution Factor (b) Negative Stress Distribution Factor

Figure 8 Effect of Number of Lane Loads on Maximum Stress Distribution Factor for Four-Box Skewed MCB Bridges

7 DISCUSSION OF THE PARAMETRIC STUDY

A parametric study was performed to examine the effect of main parameters on the maximum distribu-
tion factors of deflection and tensile stress at the mid-span and compressive stress at the intermediate
piers of prototype skewed MCB bridges.
Fig. 8 presents the influence of changing in the number of lanes on positive and negative stress dis-
tribution factor of skewed MCB bridges. It can be seen that number of lanes has an increasing influence
on maximum negative and positive stress distribution factors. For instance, for a prototype bridge with
span length of 30 meter, by growing the number lane loading from two to four, the positive and nega-
tive stress distribution factor increased by around 25% and 20%, respectively.

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(a) Positive stress distribution factor (b) Negative stress distribution factor

Figure 9 Effect of Number of Boxes on Maximum Stress Distribution Factor for Four-lane loading Skewed MCB Bridges

(a) Stress distribution factor (b) deflection distribution factor

Figure 10 Effect of Skew Angle on maximum Distribution Factor for Three- Box, Three-Lane Loading Bridges

It also can be observed that the stress distribution factor of shorter spans is higher than those which
have longer decks. Moreover, the influence of span length on distribution factor of maximum negative
stress is more important than positive one.
Fig. 9 indicates the relationship between the number of boxes and stress distribution factor of posi-
tive and negative stress. The figure shows that stress distribution factor decreases as the number of
boxes increase. This reduction is too drastic for shorter span bridges. For example, the maximum posi-
tive and negative stress of a 30 meter span length bridge, decreased by about 53% and 42%, respec-
tively when the number of bridge changed from 2 to 4.
The effect on the presence of skew angle in the supports of skewed bridges was shown in fig. 10. It is
presented in the form of the ratio of maximum distribution factor of the skewed bridges with those of
the corresponding right bridges. Rs and Rd stand for the ratio of stress and deflection, respectively. The
advantage of this method is that the results would be independent of the LRFD designated truck and
therefore would be applied to other bridge specifications.

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From fig. 10(a) in could be concluded that skew angle has an insignificant effect on positive stress
distribution factor. Therefore, its effect would be neglected in developing new equations for positive
stress distribution factor of MCB bridges.
In contrast, the skew angle has an insignificant influence on the negative stress distribution factor of
MCB bridges. For example, the ratio Rs is ranging from 1.08 to 1.40 for 30 meter bridges and changing
from 1.0 to 1.19 for those with 90 meter span lengths, as skew angle changes from 30 to 45 degrees. As
a result, it could be noted that the effect of skew angle is more notable to short bridges, strikingly.
In the same manner as describe above, the relationship between skew angle and maximum deflec-
tion distribution was drawn in fig. 10(b). It is obvious that there is a converse relationship between
deflection and skew angle, so that the maximum deflection distribution factor increases with growing
skew angle. However, the effect of skewed angle on maximum deflection is somewhat more significant
for the short span bridges.
Fig. 11 shows the effect of changing in the number of lanes and boxes on the deflection distribution
factor of bridges. It can be seen that an inverse relationship between maximum deflection distribution
factor and number of boxes (refer to fig. 11a). Meanwhile, the effect of span length on deflection distri-
bution changes in similar way as stress distribution factor in which shorter spans have more significant
impact on live load distribution factor of skewed bridges. In contrast, a direct relationship between
maximum deflection distribution factor and number of boxes can be found. However, the long bridge
remains lesser influence on this relevance.

(a) Number of boxes (b) Number of lane loads

Figure 11 Effect of different Parameters on Distribution Factor of Deflection

8 LIVE LOAD DISTRIBUTION FACTOR EQUATIONS OF THE SKEWED

MCB BRIDGES
As described earlier, the skew angle changes the load path. The live load tends by nature to take a short
cut to obtuse corners of the skewed bridge, so the lateral load distributions factor of straight bridges
cannot be used for skewed ones, any longer. To consider the skew effect on stress and deflection of
MCB bridges, it is a necessity to obtain new simplified equations for those factors. for this purpose, a
statistical method based on least square regression (Dicleli and Erhan, 2009) on obtained data from the
parametric analysis was applied. Several new equations were proposed to determine the maximum

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distribution factor for positive stress and deflection at mid-span, and negative stress over intermediate
support line of continuous skewed MCB bridges. One advantage of the new equations is that, unlike
most bridge standards, the effect of continuity and skew were taken into account in proposed equations
directly.

8.1 Distribution Factor of Positive Stress

As mentioned earlier, the effect of skew on positive distribution factors can be underestimated, so in
developing new equation for positive stress distribution factor, only obtained date from straight bridg-
es were used. The following equation was proposed for positive stress distribution factor of MCB bridg-
es:

(2)

8.2 Distribution Factor of Negative Stress

Fig. 5 shows that the skew angle greatly influenced distribution of negative stress (Dσ ne ), since in
providing the new equation for negative stress distribution factor over the intermediate supports, the
effect of skew abutment was taken into account as function of cosine (Eq. 3).

(3)

The great advantage of eq. (3) is that, unlike to LRFD specification, do not need any separate skew
correction factor.

8.3 Distribution Factor of Maximum Deflection

In the similar way, the minimum least square fit method was applied to deduce the following equation
for maximum deflection distribution factors (Dδ S ) at the mid-span of the skewed MCB bridges:

(4)

the effect of skew angle on maximum deflection distribution factor was expressed as a function of tan-
gent. This equation also can be used to obtain the maximum deflection of straight bridges, it this situa-
tion, the second phrase of equation will be equal to zero.

It should be noted that, the proposed equations (Eqs. 2-4) was obtained for the case of continuous
multicell box-girder bridges with two equal spans. They were also can be used to simple supported

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bridges and even MCB bridges with two unequal continuous spans by taking the longest span length in
equations.

9 VERIFICATION OF THE NEW DISTRIBUTION FACTOR EQUATIONS

To evaluate the accuracy of the proposed equations (Eqs. 2-4), the proposed stress and deflection dis-
tribution factors of several prototype MCB bridges were verified against distribution factor from the
current methods of analysis. Accordingly, the distribution factors of stress and deflection were calculat-
ed using; (1) Finite element method, (2) non-orthogonal Grillage method, (3) Canadian Highway
Bridge Design Code (CHBDC, 2000), (4) NCHRP Project 12-26 (Zokaie et al., 1993), and (5) AASHTO
standard.
The comparison of results was presented in table 3. It can be observed that there are a good agreement
between adopted herein finite element analysis and proposed equations. The AASHTO specification
and the Nchrp Project 12-26 live load distribution factor formulas which are basis of AASHTO LRFD
formulas, generally predicted very conservative values for positive and negative stress distribution
factors. It is due to the fact that these empirical equations were obtained using experimental and field
testing on a limited number of simply support existing bridges. Both methods cannot calculate maxi-
mum deflection distribution factor of MCB bridges.
the discrepancies between proposed equations and grillage analysis is less than nine percentages due
to assigning a lesser torsional and flexural stiffness to longitudinal and vertical members of grid plan
model and also because of assuming uniformly distribution of stress on the cross section. Nonetheless,
it can be concluded the non-orthogonal grillage analysis is a reliable and simple method to evaluate
distribution of live loads subjected traffic load conditions.
To further verify the applicability of the proposed equations (Eq. 2-4), the average (AVG) and standard
deviations (STD) of the ratios of the stress distribution factor from the proposed formulas to FEA re-
sults are presented in Table 4. The slightly greater than unity average indicates that the proposed for-
mulas can be used reasonably in the prediction of stress and deflection distribution factors. The low
variance of the proposed equations to rigorous analysis data for stress and deflection means an ac-
ceptable data with a low variety form of FEA results.
Fig. 5 shows that the skew angle greatly influenced distribution of negative stress (Dσ ne ), since in
providing the new equation for negative stress distribution factor over the intermediate supports, the
effect of skew abutment was taken into account as function of cosine (Eq. 3).

Table 3 Comparison of different Distribution Factor’s methods

Lateral distribution factor (LDF)

DLF Bridge skew CHBDC AASHTO Project Grillage Proposed SAP
prototype (2000) (2002) 12-26 analysis equations 2000

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2L-30-2b 0 0.78 1.28 1.28 1.10 1.20 1.160

Positive stress 4L-90-6b 30 0.97 0.80 0.80 0.342 0.398 0.371
3L-30-3b 45 0.78 1.19 1.19 0.720 0.793 0.741

2L-30-3b 30 0.78 1.20 1.27 0.790 0.91 0.880

Negative 4L-75-6b 30 0.86 0.85 0.95 0.419 0.516 0.500
stress 4L-90-6b 45 0.97 0.77 0.84 0.510 0.530 0.526
3L-75-3b 60 0.86 0.85 0.95 0.980 1.150 1.116

2L-30-3b 30 N/A N/A N/A 0.605 0.700 0.650

deflection 3L-75-4b 30 N/A N/A N/A 0.590 0.550 0.530
2L-90-3b 45 N/A N/A N/A 0.610 0.550 0.575
3L-60-4b 60 N/A N/A N/A 0.392 0.360 0.344

Table 4 Average, Standard Deviation and Variance of the ratio proposed equations to FEA

Live load distribution factor AVG ST.D Variance

Positive stress 1.070 0.096 0.0093

Negative stress 1.016 0.059 0.0035
Deflection 1.007 0.079 0.0062

10 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Based on the results of an extensive parametric study on continuous skewed multicell box-girder
bridges the following conclusions and recommendations were drawn:
1. The three–dimensional finite element modeling by SAP 2000 is appropriate for evaluating the be-
havior of skewed bridges.
2. For straight bridges, the maximum tensile stress occurs in the mid-span of longitudinal direction,
however, it is provided at the cross section along a line passing among the mid-span of each lane in
skewed multicell box-girder bridges.
3. The bridge span length, skew angle, number of boxes and number of lane loadings are the most cru-
cial parameters that affect stress and deflection distributions factor of these types of bridges.
4. The simplified empirical equations were deduced for distribution factor of tensile stress, negative
stress and deflection of the skewed multicell box-girder bridges.
5. The effect of skew angle on positive stress distribution factor was negligible.
6. There is a good agreement between finite element analysis, non-orthogonal grillage method and
proposed equations. It was discovered that grillage analysis can be used to determine bridge re-
sponses.
7. The AASHTO specification and AASHTO LRFD overestimate positive and negative stress distribution
factor of skewed multicell box-girder bridges.
8. Proposed equations can be used to determine maximum distribution factors of simply supported
bridges and those with two unequal spans, by setting the longest span length into equations.

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