LAMINATED COMPOSITE FRP STIFFENED PANELS FOR BRIDGE

DECK
Hemendra Kumar Jain1, Akhil Upadhyay2
1
: M.Tech. Student, Computr Aided Design, Deptt. of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of
Technology Roorkee, Roorkee – 247667. Email: hkj401@gmail.com
2
: Associate Professor, Deptt. of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee,
Roorkee – 247667.

ABSTRACT

Concrete bridge decks are subjected to severe environmental conditions and heavy traffic
loads. They sometimes account for a major percentage of a bridge structure’s dead load. A
laminated composite FRP deck weighs approximately 80% less than a concrete deck. Reducing the
dead load will increase the allowable live load capacity of the bridge without significant repair to
the existing superstructure, thus lengthening its service life. The high strength, high fatique
resistance, low density, and excellent corrosion resistance of composite panels are desirable
characteristics for bridge application, especially for decks. Being a thin walled structure, their
behaviour is governed by stability criteria. Accurate knowledge of critical buckling load and mode
shapes are essential for reliable and lightweight structural design. In this paper, parametric studies
have been carried out to understand the buckling characteristics of graphite epoxy hat and
multicellular laminated composite stiffened panels for bridge deck when subjected to bridge loading
actions. The effect of variation in fiber orientation and pitch length (number of stiffener) on
buckling response has been examined in some detail using ANSYS 11. It is shown that variation in
fiber orientation and pitch length can substantially improve the buckling capability of the bridge
deck stiffened panels sections.

Key words: Bridge deck, Tracked loading, Multicellular, Hat stiffened panels, FE analysis.

rd th
International Conference on “Design & Construction of Urban Transport Structure”, 23 – 25 April, 2010, Hydrabad,
India , pp 487-506.
1. INTRODUCTION

Since the early dawn of civilization, the strong and light material has always fascinated
mankind for typical applications. Over the past decade, FRP is gaining popularity in civil
engineering and many structural applications because of their high specific stiffness and specific
strength. The idea of composite materials for structural member are formed by the combination of
two or more materials that retain their respective characteristics when combined together to achieve
desired properties (physical, chemical, etc.) that are superior to those of individual constituents.
Composites are light in weight, possess high strength-to-weight ratio and high stiffness-to-weight
ratio as compared to conventional materials. The high strength, high fatique resistance, low density,
and excellent corrosion resistance of composite panels are desirable characteristics for bridge
application, especially for bridge decks. Hence, lightweight and durable FRPs can be an excellent
candidate for replacing concrete decks. Laminated composites are a special form of FRP which
belongs to the new generation of energy efficient materials, almost dominating over the metallic
materials. The potential of laminated composites offer several possibilities but on the other hand the
mechanical characterization of a composite structure is more complex than that of metal structures.

In all cases of buckling of plates, critical loads are proportional to the flexural rigidity of the
plates. Stability of the plate increases with the increase in the thickness of the plate but a more
economical solution is obtained by keeping the thickness of the plate as small as possible and
increasing the stability by introducing stiffeners. Being a thin walled structure the design of
stiffened plates is governed both by stability and strength criterion. These panels are becoming
increasingly used in structural applications because of their high specific stiffness and specific
strength. Laminated composite stiffened panels, which are non homogeneous and anisotropic are
gaining popularity in structural applications such as long span bridge decks, ship deck hulls and
superstructure of offshore oil platforms. The use of laminated composite provides flexibility to
tailor different properties of the structural elements to achieve strength and stiffness requirements.
Laminated composite stiffened panels are generic structural elements in weight sensitive structure
applications. Some various shaped stiffening members commonly used for panel structural concepts
are “T”, “Z”, “I”, “C”, “J”, and hat. Blade stiffened panels which actually is a plate perpendicularly
attached to the composite plate.

Many composite structure are thin-walled in nature, the assessment of their buckling
behaviour is a predominant aspect of research. Mallela U. K. and Upadhyay A. (2006) presented
parametric studies on simply supported laminated composite blade-stiffened panels subject to in-
plane shear loading. Knippers J. and Gabler M.(2007) studied a new option in the form of hybrid
structures, i.e. steel girders combined with a pultruded FRP bridge deck. Based on this technology
the design of a highway flyover was developed as a first major FRP road bridge in Germany. The
innovative technology, its economical aspects and the design of the bridge are highlighted in this
paper. Upadhyay A. and Kalyanaraman V. (2003) discussed the behaviour of FRP box girders and
proposed a simplified computationally efficient method for the analysis of single cell FRP box –
girder bridges made of blade, angle or T stiffened panels.

In this paper, parametric studies have been carried out to understand the stability analysis of
graphite epoxy multicellular and hat stiffened panels for bridge deck subjected to IRC class AA
tracked loading. All study carried out using finite element package ANSYS 11. The effects of
variation in fiber orientation and increase in number of stiffener or cell on deflection and buckling
response are also examined in some detail. An attempt has been made to achieve optimum panel
configuration for bridge deck having practical dimension and subject to realistic loading.

rd th
International Conference on “Design & Construction of Urban Transport Structure”, 23 – 25 April, 2010, Hydrabad,
India , pp 487-506.
2. MODELLING FEATURES OF STIFFENED PANELS

In the present work Eigen-buckling analysis is performed for the laminated composite multi-
cellular and hat-stiffened panels for deck by using a finite element package ANSYS 11. Modelling
laminated stiffened panels needs care in defining the properties of the plate and stiffener, number of
layers, pitch length thickness and fiber orientations of each layer.

Out of the several elements available in the ANSYS library for modelling laminates,
Shell91, which is designed to model thin plates and shell structures, is taken for the analysis. It is an
eight-noded, quadrilateral nonlinear layered shell element, which has both bending and membrane
capabilities and capable of taking up to 16 layers. It can sustain in-plane loads, normal loads and is
suitable for large deformation effects. The element has six degrees of freedom at each node.
Numerical studies are carried out on laminated composite stiffened panels made of graphite epoxy.
Material properties are defined in Table 1. In table 1, subscript 1 denotes a direction parallel to the
fiber orientation and subscript 2 denotes a direction transverse to the fiber orientation in plane of
plates. Numbers of panels are modelled with the desired pitch length and the required number of
stiffeners. All the panels are simply supported and at the supports out of plane deformations in the
plate and the stiffener are restricted. Equivalent load corresponding to given tracked load is applied
on all centre nodes of the panel. The buckling factor obtained by the analysis is multiplied with the
intensity of loading to get the buckling load.

Longitudinally stiffened rectangular panels, simply supported along two opposite transverse
edges or all the four edges, are dealt with. The panel may be either multicellular or hat stiffened
panels (Figure 1). Each element in the panel is tailored out of a number layers of unidirectional lay-
ups oriented at different angles to the longitudinal direction. In the present work three practical fiber
orientations (0o, ±45o and 90o) are considered wherein the + and – 45 degree plies are always kept
together and the other layers are arranged so as to maintain a balanced and symmetric lay-up
configuration and thus avoid membrane bending coupling. Uniform pressure loading in the
transverse direction of panels are applied.

3. VALIDATION STUDIES

Deflection of simply supported plate is model in ANSYS11 compared with the analytical
deflection as shown in table 2 and table 3. A close match in the values can be seen thus, validating
the present approach.
 Dimension of plate = a×2a
 Maximum deflection = (0.0101×p×a4) /D
 D = (E×h3)/[12(1-ν2)]
Now hare symbols are a=width of plate, p=pressure intensity, h=thickness of plate, E=modulus of
elasticity of plate material, ν=poisson’s ratio of material, D=flexural rigidity of the plate.

EXAMPLE 1
A square simply supported plate as shown in Figure 2. This problem was analyzed analytical
and in ansys. The geometrical properties are:
Plate: side length (a) = 200 mm, thickness (t) = 15 mm.
Plate is made of the isotropic material with modulus of elasticity (E) = 20,000N/mm2 and poisson’s
(ν) = 0.3. The load is uniformly distributed over the plate with intensity (p) of 0.115N/mm2. The
results are given in Table 2.

EXAMPLE 2

rd th
International Conference on “Design & Construction of Urban Transport Structure”, 23 – 25 April, 2010, Hydrabad,
India , pp 487-506.
 This example is identical to Example 1 by changing the geometric property of plate. The
geometrical properties are:
Plate: side length (a) = 100 mm, thickness (t) = 10 mm.
The loading is uniformly distributed of 0.1N/mm2 intensity. The results for mesh 4×4mm for plate
are shown in Table 3.

4. PARAMETRIC STUDY FOR DECKS

A stiffened panel may buckle in local or global (general instability) mode. Generally, for
panels the local mode means buckling of the plate element between the stiffeners, while the global
mode extends over more than one plate element between the stiffeners.

4.1 BRIDGE DECK PARAMETERS USED FOR ANALYSIS

Multi-cellular and hat stiffened panels have been modelled using ANSYS software. The
dimensions of the panels have been kept constant as 3000 mm length, 1500 mm width and 200 mm
depth. Only the pitch lengths are varied. Pressure is applied on the top surface to simulate the Class
AA tracked vehicle loading. This loading consists of a tracked vehicle of 700kN. The load of one
track is 350kN and equivalent intensity of load applied is 350/(0.85x3.6)=115 kN/sqm. These
studies are carried out on symmetric laminates of 0, ±45 and 90 degree fiber orientations for plate1–
stiffener1, plate2–stiffener2 and plate3–stiffener3 combinations as defined in Table4. Some of the
lay-up sequence as simulated in ANSYS 11 for plate and stiffener elements are shown in Figure 3.
The numbering of layers starts from the far end as one to eight at the front. Weights of various
stiffened panel used for the study are given in Table 5.

4.2 DEFLECTION CRITERIA OF FRP DECK PANELS

Figure 4(a)–(c) shows the variation of deflection with pitch lengths. From these figures, it
can be observed that with the increase in number of stiffeners the deflection decreases in all the
cases and for different fiber orientation this phenomenon is valid. Deflection of stiffened panels, it
is the least for 0 degree fibre orientation and maximum being for 90 degree fibre orientations.
Generally the acceptable limit of deflection is span/300 according to serviceability criteria so that
up to the 10mm deflection is considered in safe limit. Deformation of FRP stiffened panels are
within the acceptable limit for 0 degree fiber orientation and pitch length from 187.5 to 125mm. In
0 degree fiber orientation load is transferred in the longitudinal direction so deflection value is less
as compared to other.

Thus it can be concluded that any configuration of pitch ranging from 187.5 to 125 mm and
fiber orientation 0 degree is meeting the requirements of deflection. Hence, less pitch length and 0
degree fiber orientation are preferable from deflection point of view. In practical situation a
combination of 0, ±45, 90 degree fiber orientation will be utilised and to control deflection 0 degree
fiber layer should be in sufficient number.

4.3 BUCKLING LOAD FOR FRP DECK PANELS

Figure 5(a)–(i) shows the variation of buckling load/kg weight with type of stiffeners, fiber
orientation and pitch length. From these figures, it is evident that the value of buckling load per kg
for hat stiffened panels are greater than multicellular stiffened panels in all cases. However, since
the panel width is 1500 mm, spacing less then 125 is not a practical option. The configurations
187.5, 150 and 125 mm are more practical in nature since the spacing is within acceptable limits
from both manufacturing, workability and strength point of view.
rd th
International Conference on “Design & Construction of Urban Transport Structure”, 23 – 25 April, 2010, Hydrabad,
India , pp 487-506.
 90 degree fiber orientation are giving the slightly better buckling load per kg value. This
happens because 90 degree fiber orientation tries to balance stiffness in both X and Z direction in
presence of ribs.All pitch length show high values of buckling load per kg for 90 and ±45 degree
orientations. 0 degree orientation is having the buckling load per kg less than half of ±45, 90 degree
orientation for both multicellular and hat stiffened panels. with the increase in number of stiffeners
it is noted that the buckling is more predominant in the webs due to reduction of width to thickness
(b/t) ratio in the flange. Figure 6 and 7 shows the buckling mode shapes for the composite stiffened
panel, subjected to class AA tracked vehicle loading.

5 CONCLUSION

Parametric studies on buckling behaviour of simply supported laminated composite

multicellular and hat-stiffened panels subjected to class AA tracked loading are carried out by
changing pitch length and fiber orientation the following conclusions are drawn:

 The deformation of the FRP stiffened panel is within acceptable limits for 0 degree fiber
orientation for pitch length 187.5 to 125 mm. Deflection point of view 0 degree fiber
orientation is better then ±45 and 90 orientation.
 185.5 to 125mm pitch of stiffners show high values of buckling load per kg for 90 and
±45 degree orientations but not for 0 degree fiber orientation.
 For a box and hat stiffened panels pitch length 187.5mm to 125mm, the increase in
weight is just 14 to 15kg whereas, the increase of buckling factor is almost double.
Increase in weight of stiffened panels are negligible when compared increase in load
carrying capacity.

In general we required both less deflection and high stiffness so mixed fiber orientation can
be used to to achieve both. It is evident that there is immense scope for stiffened FRP decks to
reduce self weight of a bridge. Also the utility of these types of materials is enhanced owing to their
high stiffness, strength and stability properties.
REFERENCES
1. Akhil Upadhyay and V. Kalyanaraman, “Simplified analysis of FRP box-girders,”
Composite Structures, vol. 59, 2003, pp217–225.
2. C. B. York, F. W. Williams and D. Kennedy, “A Parametric study of optimum designs for
benchmark stiffened wing panels”, Composites Engineering, Vol. 3, No. 7-8, 1993, pp. 619-
632.
3. Dr.-Ing. Rudolph Szilard P.E, “Theory and Application of Plate analysis Classical
Numerical and Engineering Methods”, John Willey & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey,
2004.
4. Edward A. Sadek and Samer A. Tawfik, “A finite element model for the analysis of
stiffened laminated plates”, Computers and Structures, vol. 75, 2000, pp 369-383.
5. Hwai-Chung Wu, Gongkang Fu, Ronald F Gibson, An Yan, Kraig Warnemuende, and Vijay
Anumandla, “Durability of FRP Composite Bridge Deck Materials under Freeze-Thaw and
Low Temperature Conditions”, J. Bridge Engg., ASCE, 11(4), 2006, pp 443-451.
6. Jan Knippers and Markus Gabler, “New Design Concepts for Advanced Composite Bridges-
The Friedberg Bridge in Germany”, 2007.
7. Klaus-Jurgen Bathe, “Finite Element Procedures”, Prentice Hall of India Pvt Ltd, New
Delhi, 2006.
8. R. M. Jones, “Mechanics of Composite Materials”, Scripta Book Co., Washington, D.C.,
1975.
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International Conference on “Design & Construction of Urban Transport Structure”, 23 – 25 April, 2010, Hydrabad,
India , pp 487-506.
 9. R. Thapliyal, “Stability analysis of multi-cellular FRP panels”, M.Tech Thesis, department
of civil engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India, 2009.
10. Tang Benjamin, “A Successful Beginning for FRP Composite Materials in Bridge
Applications”, FHWA Proceedings, International Conference, December 7-11, 1998,
Orlando, FL.
11. Tang Benjamin, “Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composites Applications in USA”, U.S.A.
Road Workshop Proceedings, USA, 1997.
12. Upendra K. Mallela, Akhil Upadhyay, “Buckling of laminated composited stiffened panels
subject to in plane shear: A parametric study”, Thin-walled structure, vol. 44, 2006, pp 354-
361.
13. Upendra K. Mallela, Rajeev Chandak And Akhil Upadhyay, “Laminated Composites for
Structural Engineering – Perspective Application and Challenges”, International conference,
Indian Institute of Technology guwahati, 2006.
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combined loads: Design procedure based on simplified equations”, TN D-8257, NASA,
1976.

Table 1
Lamina material properties
E1 (MPa) E2 (Mpa) G12 (MPa) ρ (kg/m3) υ12 υ21
145000 16500 4480 1520 0.314 0.037

Table 2
Maximum deflection
Analytical Present approach a (ANSYS11) % error
0.03006mm 0.03014mm 0.266
a
2×2 mm Meshes for plate.

Table 3
Maximum deflection
Analytical Present approach a (ANSYS11) % error
0.00551mm 0.00552mm 0.181

Table 4
Details of lay-up sequence
Type of Lay up Layer number(starting Thickness(mm) Fiber orientation
element sequence from outside layer) (θ, degree)
Plate 1 1,5 1 0
2,6 1 0
3,7 1 0
4,8 1 0
2 1,5 1 45
2,6 1 -45
3,7 1 45
4,8 1 -45
3 1,5 1 90
2,6 1 90
3,7 1 90
4,8 1 90
Stiffener 1 1,5 0.5 0
2,6 0.5 0
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International Conference on “Design & Construction of Urban Transport Structure”, 23 – 25 April, 2010, Hydrabad,
India , pp 487-506.
 3,7 0.5 0
4,8 0.5 0
2 1,5 0.5 45
2,6 0.5 -45
3,7 0.5 45
4,8 0.5 -45
3 1,5 0.5 90
2,6 0.5 90
3,7 0.5 90
4,8 0.5 90

Table 5
Weight of stiffened panels
Pitch Length 187.5mm 150mm 125mm
Multicellular (Wt. in kg) 142.272 149.568 156.864

Hat(Wt. in kg) 97.584 104.88 112.176

Figure 1. Finite element model of composite multicellular and hat stiffened panel.

Figure 2. Simply supported square plate.

Plate 1 and Stiffener 1 Plate 2 and Stiffener 2

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International Conference on “Design & Construction of Urban Transport Structure”, 23 – 25 April, 2010, Hydrabad,
India , pp 487-506.
 Plate 3 and Stiffener 3
Figure 3. Lay-up sequence simulated in ANSYS.

(a) Plate1-Stiffener1 combination

(b) Plate2-Stiffener2 combination

(c) Plate3-Stiffener3 combination

Figure 4. Variation of deflection with pitch length for multicellular and hat stiffened panels.
rd th
International Conference on “Design & Construction of Urban Transport Structure”, 23 – 25 April, 2010, Hydrabad,
India , pp 487-506.
 (a)

(b)

(c)
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International Conference on “Design & Construction of Urban Transport Structure”, 23 – 25 April, 2010, Hydrabad,
India , pp 487-506.
 (d)

(e)

(f)
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International Conference on “Design & Construction of Urban Transport Structure”, 23 – 25 April, 2010, Hydrabad,
India , pp 487-506.
 (g)

(h)

(i)
Figure 5. Variation of buckling load per kg with diffrent mode of buckling for multicellular
and hat stiffened panels.

rd th
International Conference on “Design & Construction of Urban Transport Structure”, 23 – 25 April, 2010, Hydrabad,
India , pp 487-506.
 Deform shape Contour plot
Figure 6. Buckling mode shape for hat stiffened panel.

Deform shape Contour plot

Figure 7. Buckling mode shape for multicellular stiffened panel.

rd th
International Conference on “Design & Construction of Urban Transport Structure”, 23 – 25 April, 2010, Hydrabad,
India , pp 487-506.