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Development of a Design Procedure for Concrete Traffic Barrier Attachments to Bridge Decks Utilizing Epoxy Concrete Anchors

REPORT NUMBER

TRP-03-264-12

AUTHORS

Benjamin Dickey, Ronald Faller, Scott Rosenbaugh, Bob Bielenberg, Karla Lechtenberg (Polivka), Dean Sicking

PUBLICATION DATE

2012-11-26

ABSTRACT

The objective of this project was to determine if epoxy adhesive anchors could be utilized to anchor concrete barriers to bridge decks and to develop design procedures for implementing epoxy adhesive anchorages into concrete bridge railings. A series of 16 dynamic bogie tests and one static test was conducted to investigate the behavior of epoxy adhesive anchors under dynamic load. Additional dynamic tests were conducted on 1 1/8 in. (29 mm) diameter A307 threaded rods, which was the anchorage required for the F-shape temporary concrete barrier developed by MwRSF. Results from the testing of the on 1 1/8 in. (29 mm) diameter A307 threaded rods suggested that they can be safely used with epoxy adhesive to anchor the F-shape PCB and reduce deflections, but some increase in deflection and significant damage to the bridge deck was expected in severe impacts. Comparisons were made between the component tests and analytical models for epoxy adhesive anchors. The cone and full uniform bond model and ACI 318-11 procedures were both compared with the component tests in order to verify their effectiveness. Review of the comparisons between the analytical models and the tensile component tests found that both the cone and full uniform bond model and ACI 318-11 provided reasonable predictions for the failure mode of the epoxy adhesive anchors, but both were conservative in prediction of design loads. It was recommended that the ACI 318-11 procedures be combined with the proposed dynamic increase factors for design of epoxy adhesive anchors based on the performance in these comparisons and its wide accessibility and ease of implementation. Following the selection of the ACI 318-11 procedures, a design methodology for the use of epoxy adhesive anchors for cast-in-place concrete bridge rails was presented. This method combines yield line analysis and ACI 318-11 to develop acceptable anchor and barrier designs. Recommendations for future research were made to fill gaps in the existing research effort and to evaluate the conservative nature of the proposed design methodology.