Modeling current traffic load, safety evaluation

and SFE analysis of four bridges in China

Q. Quan
Tsinghua University, Beijing, China 100084

Abstract
Many bridges in China are working under overloading with structural
deterioration and there is an urgent need to evaluate current load-carrying
capacity. The bridges discussed have carried coal trucks 2.5 times as large as the
design load for many years. Statistics based on acquired traffic load data over
2.5 months showed that the vehicle load has a 2 peak distribution density.
Traditional unimodal probability distributions cannot describe the current vehicle
loads appropriately. A bi-modal distribution, with two peaks, consisting of a
weighted sum of two normal probability distributions to describe different
vehicle loads is developed according to the data. A filtered composite Poisson
process and a filtered composite Erlang renewal process are established to
describe the vehicle load processes consisting of both overloaded and normal
vehicles for the dense and normal traffic states, respectively. Finally, 0.95
fractile of maximum distributions of these vehicle loads in a 20-year residual life
period for existing bridges on the national highway are used as their evaluation
loads. This paper also discusses requirements on finite element models of
complete bridges for the evaluation to represent actual load-carrying capacity.
Both 8 node hexahedron and 4 node tetrahedron elements were used in the paper
to build analytical models in order to evaluate their potential load-carrying
capacity. This paper also discusses how to select element models and grids.
Evaluation results showed that only one bridge among four should be
demolished, two should be strengthened and the remained one behaves well
under the overloading. Analysis for evaluation of an existing bridge is much
more complicated than that for the design of new bridges that requires today’s
bridge engineers to learn theories of elasticity and plates and shells. This paper
also makes a reliability analysis by using a SFE program PSAP. This gave
reliability indexes of a bridge which were much smaller than the target ones.
Keywords: bi-modal distribution, traffic load, filtered Poisson process, filtered
Erlang process, Bridge in service, evaluation, hexahedron n element,
tetrahedron element, remained reliability index, stochastic finite element.

Risk Analysis IV, C. A. Brebbia (Editor)

© 2004 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISBN 1-85312-736-1
404 Risk Analysis IV

1 Introduction
Highway transportation in China has quickly developed for more than 20 years.
A great quantity of new bridges has been built meanwhile load carrying capacity
of many bridges in service needs to be re-evaluated and strengthened. Damage in
highway bridges is induced by deterioration of bridge structures and overloaded
heavy trucks. This study is a part of re-evaluation of load carrying capacity of
three deck arch concrete bridges and a box girder concrete bridge on No. 110
national highway. Structural health inspections showed that states of their
substructures, arch ribs and girders are generally normal during 20 year service
except seriously cracking of deck plates.
Observation of traffic on the highway showed the four bridges have been
overloaded for many years. They were designed for 20 ton trucks, following
China General Specifications [1] 20 years ago. In addition of normal vehicles,
however, a vast amount of heavy trucks carrying coal even more than 83 tons
each truck travels on the highway every day with all loaded trucks going to the
North and unloaded trucks to the South.
No. 110 national highway is important for coal transportation in the North
China area. Considering prices of electric power and others in the area, the local
government decided to permit for these heavy trucks to pass these bridges and
strengthen the bridges. However, No. 100 highway is a national highway which
is for all vehicles but not special for only coal trucks, that leaded to re-evaluate
their load carrying capacity for a live load including both normal vehicles and
the heavy trucks and for a period of continuous 20 year service life.
The re-evaluation of the four bridges carrying a live load two times as large
as the designed value should use refined analytical models which can fully
utilize potential load carrying capacity of the bridges. Therefore, all of the four
bridges were modeled by 3 dimension solid elements. Each model contained 20
to 120 thousands solid elements. Analytical efficiency, therefore, is critical to
this work. Instead of Monte Carlo method, this study used design formulae for
structural component stipulated in a China design code [2], a level-1-reliability -
based bridge code and stochastic finite element method. The first part of the
paper discusses the live load for the re-evaluation.
In design formulae stipulated in the China design code, the characteristic
value of live load is a 95% fractile related to its probability distribution function
in a given work life. In order to compare the evaluated safety of the four bridges
for the current live load with the value of target reliability index behind the
China design code, a probability density function for the live load consisting of
both normal vehicles and the heavy trucks in a period of 20 years is needed for
defining its 0.95 fractile.
Recently acquired vehicle data on No.110 national highway in a period of
about three months showed that histograms according to the acquired data have
clearly separated two main peaks. Fitting the live load with any of traditional
unimodel probability density functions with a single peak previously used for
traffic loads [1] cannot pass statistical tests.

Risk Analysis IV, C. A. Brebbia (Editor)

© 2004 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISBN 1-85312-736-1
 Risk Analysis IV 405

Therefore, a bimodal probability distribution is needed to fit the data by

using, for instance, nonlinear least square method or maximum likelihood
estimation method. Possibly there have been only two papers [3,4] among those
on modeling traffic loads which were from the same research project on fatigue
evaluation of steel components of railway bridges, a purpose different of this
study. Considering the static ultimate limit state, this paper presents a bi-modal
filtered composite Poisson process and a bi-modal filtered composite Erlang
renewal process to describe the vehicle load processes of both dense and general
traffic states consisting of both overloaded trucks and normal vehicles,
respectively. Then, maximum distributions of both overloaded trucks and normal
vehicles in a 20-year residual life of the bridges are developed, 0.95 fractile of
these distributions are used as evaluation load for the four bridges.
The paper discusses only traffic loads on a single lane and assumes that the
time interval between consecutive vehicle arrivals is independently and
identically distributed and that vehicle load is independent of the vehicle arrival
process.

2 Bi-modal vehicle load probability distribution

According to traffic vehicle load data on the road acquired in 2001, the mean
value, standard deviation and coefficient of variance of the vehicle load, are
µ=393.65kN,σ=186.96kN, and δ=0.475, respectively. The large value of δ
indicates that many samples are far away from mean value. The histogram of the
acquired data is shown in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 shows the acquired data on the
normal probability paper.

Figure 1: Histogram of acquired vehicle Figure 2: Acquired vehicle data on

load. normal probability paper.

As shown in Fig. 1, the vehicle load samples mostly locate at two regions
centered at 250 kN and 700 kN. It can be concluded that the vehicle load has a
bi-modal probability distribution with two clearly separated peaks. One peak
corresponds to the normal vehicles including unloaded trucks, while another
corresponds to the overloaded trucks. A two-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test
refuses unimodel distributions, such as lognormal distribution, which is used by

Risk Analysis IV, C. A. Brebbia (Editor)

© 2004 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISBN 1-85312-736-1
406 Risk Analysis IV

the code [1], or inverse normal distributions at a confidence level 5%. One
should turn to bimodal distributions to fit this traffic load [5].
A bimodal normal distribution, with two peaks, consisting of a weighted
sum of two normal distributions can describe vehicle load appropriately. The
bimodal normal probability density function is given by
p  x − µ1  (1 − p )  x − µ2  (1)
fˆ ( x ; θ ) = exp  − 2 
+ exp  − 2 
2πσ 1  2σ 1  2πσ 2  2σ 2 
Its cumulative distribution function is given by
 x − µ1   x − µ2  (2)
Fˆ ( x ; θ ) = pΦ   + (1 − p ) Φ  
 σ 1   σ2 
where θ=[p,µ1,σ1, µ2,σ2], Φ ( x ) is the standard normal distribution function.
Levenbery-Marquardt nonlinear least square method [6] with minimizing
n
1 2
(3)
J (θ) = ∑  F ( xk ) − Fˆ ( xk ; θ ) 
k =1 2
 
and BFGS quasi-Newton method [7] with maximizing
n  n
L ( θ ) = ln  ∏ fˆ ( xi ; θ )  = ∑ ln  fˆ ( xi ; θ )  (4)
 i =1  i =1  
where F ( x ) is the vehicle load empirical cumulative distribution function, are
used to fit the vehicle load data.
The two fitting methods give the same θ: P=0.6771, µ1=273.52, σ1=72.83,
µ2=649.33, σ2=82.16 with the subscript 1 related to the normal vehicle load, and
subscript 2 related to the overloaded truck load. A two-sample Kolmogorov-
Smirnov test does not refuse the fitting distribution at a confidence level of 1%.

3 Bi-modal filtered composite Poisson and renewal processes

A research project supported by China Ministry of Communication observed
inter-arrival time between two consecutive arriving vehicles for the general
traffic state showed that the inter-arrival time has an exponential distribution [8],
and that for the dense traffic state has an Erlang distribution with an integer
parameter k, see Table 1. The duration which a vehicle stays at a certain point of
the vehicle lane is very short. Therefore, the vehicle load process {L(t), t≥0} for
the general traffic state is a filtered composite Poisson process and that for the
dense traffic state is a filtered composite Erlang renewal process (see Fig. 6).
Both can be described as:
N (t )

L ( t ) = ∑ ξ n I ( t ;τ n ) (5)
n=0

where {N(t), t≥0}is a vehicle counting process which is a Poisson process for the
general traffic state and a renewal process for the dense traffic state, ξn, n=1,2,…
is a weight of the nth arriving vehicle which has a bimodal distribution with ξi
and ξj , i≠j, independent of each other, and also independent of N(t) [8].

Risk Analysis IV, C. A. Brebbia (Editor)

© 2004 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISBN 1-85312-736-1
 Risk Analysis IV 407

1, t ∈ τ n
I ( t ;τ n ) =  (6)
 0, t ∉ τ n
where τn, n=1,2,3… is the duration which the nth arriving vehicle ξn stays at
certain point of the vehicle lane. Denote by Tn a inter-arrival time between ξn-1
and ξn, and τn << Tn, with τ0=0.

Table 1: Statistics of inter-arrival time.

Traffic states Distribution density, f(t) Parameters

General traffic state Exponential, λ e − λ t λ =0.039451
Erlang, λ
Dense traffic state Γ(k)
(λt)k −1 e−λt λ=7.23581, k = 13

3.1 Thinned counting process for the general traffic state

The normal vehicle and overloaded truck counting processes of the general
traffic state can be described with a thinned Poisson process, and can be divided
into two independent Poisson processes with arrival rates λp and λ(1-p) [9].
The probability that the number of arrived normal vehicles, Nm(t), in a time
interval t (in seconds) would be nm is given by
( λ pt )n m
exp ( −λ pt )
P ( Nm ( t ) = nm ) = (7)
nm !
The probability that the number of arrived overloaded trucks Nw(t) equals nw is
n
[ λ (1 − p) t ] w exp[ λ (1 − p) t ]
P ( Nw ( t ) = nw ) =
(8)
nw !
3.2 Thinned counting process for the dense traffic state

The normal vehicle and overloaded truck counting process for the dense traffic
state can be described with a thinned Erlang renewal process. The probability
that the number of arrived normal and overloaded vehicles in t would be n is [10]
( n + 1) k − 1
( λt ) j

P ( N (t ) = n) = ∑ exp ( − λ t ) (11)
j = nk j!

The probability that the number of arrived normal vehicles in t would be nm is

∞ ( nm + r + 1) k − 1
( λt ) j

P ( N m ( t ) = nm ) = ∑ Cn (1 − p ) r  ∑ exp ( − λ t ) 
nm nm
m +r
p (12)
r =0
 ( ) j!  j = nm + r k

The probability that the number of arrived overloaded trucks in t would be nw is

∞
 ( n + r +1) k −1 ( λ t ) j 
P ( N w ( t ) = nw ) = ∑ Cnn + r p r (1 − p )  ∑ exp ( −λ t ) 
w
nw
w (13)
w
r =0  j =( n + r ) k j !
w 

Risk Analysis IV, C. A. Brebbia (Editor)

© 2004 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISBN 1-85312-736-1
408 Risk Analysis IV

4 Evaluation vehicle load

The China Specifications [1] uses a maximum vehicle load distribution in a
design reference period of nd years. A 20-year residual life was taken as nd =20
years according to the Beijing Highway Bureau for the existing bridges on
No.110 national highway. The 0.95 fractiles of maximum distribution of weights
of both overloaded trucks and normal vehicles in nd were taken as characteristic
values of the evaluation loads.

4.1 Evaluation vehicle load on each traffic lane for the general traffic state

The thinned Poisson process can be divided into two independent Poisson
processes with arrival rate values λp and λ(1-p).
The maximum normal vehicle weight in nd has probability distribution:
{
FTm ( x ) = exp − λ pnd 1 − Φ ( ( x − µ ) σ )}
1 1 (14)
0.95 fractile of the maximum weight of a normal vehicle in the design
reference period is considered as the evaluation load of normal vehicles.
xnn,0.95 = 612 kN (15)
Similarly, maximum overloaded truck weight in nd has probability distribution:
{
FTw ( x ) = exp − λ (1 − p ) nd 1 − Φ ( ( x − µ ) σ )}
2 2 (16)
The 0.95 fractile of maximum load of an overloaded truck in nd as the evaluation
load of overloaded trucks on each traffic lane is
xnw,0.95 = 1026 kN (17)

4.2 Evaluation vehicle load on each traffic lane for dense traffic state

Let {N(t), t≥0} be a renewal counting process corresponding to independently

and identically distributed inter-arrival times which has an Erlang probability
with parameters λ>0 and k=1,2,…. The probability generating function of N(t)is
1
s − 1 k −1 s k ε j      
∞ 1
P (t, s ) = ∑ s P ( N (t ) = n ) = 1 +
n
∑  1 − exp  − λ t  1 − s ε    (18)
k j
sk j = 0 1 
n =0
1 − s k ε j      
where
ε=exp(2πi/k) (19)
The number of normal vehicle and overloaded trucks for the dense traffic
state can be described with a thinned Erlang renewal process. The maximum
weight of a normal vehicle in nd has probability distribution:
1

FTm ( x ) = 1 +
pFˆm ( x ) − p 1 k −1
⋅ ∑
( pFˆ ( x ) + 1 − p ) ε
m
k j

pFˆ ( x ) + 1 − p k j = 0 (20)
1
m
1 − ( pFˆ ( x ) + 1 − p ) ε
m
k j

 

(
⋅ 1 − exp  −λ nd  1 − pFˆm ( x ) + 1 − p ) ε   
1/ k
j

    

Risk Analysis IV, C. A. Brebbia (Editor)

© 2004 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISBN 1-85312-736-1
 Risk Analysis IV 409

The 0.95 fractile of the maximum normal vehicle weight in nd as the

evaluation load of normal vehicle is
xdn,0.95 = 655.4 kN (21)
The maximum overloaded truck weight in nd has probability distribution:
( )
∞
FTw ( x ) = ∑ p + (1 − p ) ⋅ Fˆw ( x ) ⋅ P ( N ( nd ) = n )
n

n =0 1

= 1+
p + (1 − p ) ⋅ Fˆw ( x ) − 1 1 k −1
⋅ ∑
( p + (1 − p ) ⋅ Fˆw ( x ) ) k
εj
p + (1 − p ) ⋅ Fˆ ( x ) k j = 0
1
w
(
1 − p + (1 − p ) ⋅ Fˆw ( x ) ) k
εj
 

( )
⋅ 1 − exp  −λTd 1 − p + (1 − p ) ⋅ Fˆw ( x ) ε j   
1/ k

    

0.95 fractile of the maximum weight of an overloaded truck on each traffic lane
in nd is considered as the evaluation load of overloaded trucks:
xdw,0.95 = 1080 kN (22)

a) Deshengkou bridge b) Guniangtai bridge

c) Douling No.1 bridge d) Huangtuzui bridge

Figure 3: Three concrete arch bridges and one concrete box girder bridge.

5 Finite element analysis

China bridge codes have few words on establishment of analytical models.
According to long time overloading on these bridges, their analytical models
should represent their accurate load-bearing capacity.

Risk Analysis IV, C. A. Brebbia (Editor)

© 2004 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISBN 1-85312-736-1
410 Risk Analysis IV

5.1 Analytical models of three arch bridges

The three double curvature arch bridges have complicated cross section shapes,
see Figure 3a), b) and c), and their depths of arch cross sections are not uniform,
especially in the areas near to spandrel walls and crowns due to massive cast-in-
place concrete joints. It is difficult to use beam elements to describe such bridges
dependably. The beam element cannot accurately represent the box girder of
another bridge, see Figure 3d) .
The 8-nodel hexahedron isoparametric element was used in this evaluation
because of not significant strain gradient in the bridges and computation
efficiency of this element.

a) Finite element mesh of complete bridge b) Local finite element mesh

Figure 4: Finite element mesh of Deshengkou bridge.

a) Local element mesh of main arch b) Local mesh of a spandrel wall

Figure 5: Finite element mesh of Guniangtai bridge.

a) Global element mesh b) Local element mesh near to a skewback

Figure 6: Finite element mesh of Douling No. 1 bridge.

Risk Analysis IV, C. A. Brebbia (Editor)

© 2004 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISBN 1-85312-736-1
 Risk Analysis IV 411

The finite element model of Deshengkou bridge has 47,913 nodes and
121,034 elements, see Figure 4a) for the complete bridge and b) for a pier, a
spandrel wall and arches. The model of Guniangtai bridge has 80,489 nodes and
72,527 elements, see Figure 5a) for the main arch and b) for a spandrel wall. The
element model of Douling No.1 bridge has 18,823 nodes and 32,200 elements,
see Figure 6a) for the complete bridge and b) for an area near by a skewback.
5.1.1 Analytical model of box girder bridge
Huangtuzui bridge has a curve concrete box girder. In order to represent actual
load-bearing capacity of box girders the hexahedron isoparametric element was
used in its evaluation. Its analytical model has 11,350 nodes and 10,413
elements, see Figure 7a) for a box girder section and b) for a section near by a
pier.
5.2 Analytical results
All parts of Deshengkou bridge have enough capacity to carry the current vehicle
loads on two traffic lanes. Figure 8 shows stresses in its arch ribs. Main arches
and spandrel walls of Guniangtai bridge can carry the current vehicle loads but
skewback areas of the main arches may crack, see figure 9 for stresses here. The
deck of this bridge cannot carry the current vehicle loads and should be replaced.
However, the main arches and deck of Douling No.1 bridge cannot carry the
current vehicle loads and should be demolished and rebuilt.

a) Local element mesh of box girder b) Local element mesh near by a pier
Figure 7: Finite element mesh of Huangtuzui bridge.

Figure 8: Stresses in main arches of Figure 9: Stresses in main arches of

Deshengkou bridge. Guniangtai bridge.

Risk Analysis IV, C. A. Brebbia (Editor)

© 2004 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISBN 1-85312-736-1
412 Risk Analysis IV

a) Tensile stresses in top flange b) Compressive stresses in bottom flange

Figure 10: Stresses in flanges of box girder above a center pier, Huangtuzui
bridge.
Main reinforcement in the top flange of Huagtuzui bridge, see Figure 10a)
for principal tensile stresses in the top flange, and b) concrete thickness of the
bottom flange for principal compressive stresses in the bottom flange, of the box
girder above the two center piers are not enough and should be strengthened.
Shear reinforcement in webs of the girder near by the two center pier is a little
less than required by the current vehicle loads and also should be strengthened.

6 SFE analysis of Douling arch bridge

In order to check the above evaluation results based on characteristic values of
current vehicle loads, a reliability stochastic finite element analysis of Douling
No.1 bridge was carried out by using PSAP, a software developed by the
authors.
Results of the SFE analysis shows that reliability indexes of many cross
sections of its main arch ribs has values of 3.53 to 4.31, much less than target
value 4.7 [1], that leads to the same conclusion.

7 Conclusions
Bimodel distributions are used for fitting the current overloads. The
characteristic values are used for evaluating four bridges. 8-node hexahedron
isoparametric elements were used to represent the bridges with complex
geometry. SFE analysis was carried out to check the evaluation results.

Acknowledgements
The paper is a part of works for the national key fundamental development
programming (973) project ‘Fundamental research on safety of key civil
engineering structures in hazardous environment’ (2002CB4127009).

References
[1] China Highway planning and design Institute, General Specifications for
Design of Highway Bridges and Culverts, JTJ 021-89. China
Communication Press. Beijing, 1989 (in Chinese).

Risk Analysis IV, C. A. Brebbia (Editor)

© 2004 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISBN 1-85312-736-1
 Risk Analysis IV 413

[2] China Highway planning and design Institute, specifications for Design of
highway RC and PC bridges JTJ 023-85. China Communication Press.
Beijing, 1985 (in Chinese).
[3] Wen, Y. K. Foutch, D. A. and Tobias, D. H. A review of modeling of
loading uncertainty, Structural Reliability in Bridge Engineering, Design,
Inspection, Assessment, Rehabilitation and Management, D. M.
Frangopol and G. Hearn Ed., Proceedings of the Workshop on Structural
Reliability in Bridge Engineering, Boulder, Colorado, USA, Oct. 2-4,
1996, 72-77.
[4] Daniel H. Tobias, Douglas A. Foutch, John Choros, Loading Spectra for
railway bridges under current operating conditions, Journal of Bridge
Engineering, vol.1, No.4, 1996, 127-134.
[5] Crespo-Minguillón, C and Casas, J.R., A comprehensive traffic load
model for bridge safety checking. Structural Safety, 1997,19(4), 339-359.
[6] Ikonen, E. and Najim, K., Advanced process identification and control.
Marcel Dekker: New York, 2002.
[7] Shanno, D.F., Conditioning of Quasi-Newton Methods for Function
Minimization, Mathematics of Computing, 1970, 24, 647-656.
[8] Mori, Y. and Ellingwood, B.R., Reliability-Based Service-Life
Assessment of Aging Concrete Structures. Journal of Structural
Engineering, 1993, 119(5), 1600-1621.
[9] Snyder, D.L., Random point processes. Wiley: New York, 1975.
[10] Wen, Y.K., Structural load modeling and combination for performance
and safety evaluation. Elsevier: Amsterdam, 1990.

Risk Analysis IV, C. A. Brebbia (Editor)

© 2004 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISBN 1-85312-736-1