Mechanical behavior improving study of concrete deck of main beam at pylon root of composite beam cable-stayed bridge

Steel-concrete composite beam has been increasingly applied to large span cable-stayed bridges. It takes full advantage of the material properties of steel and concrete. However, the concrete deck bears tension in the negative moment zone, such as zero block, which is disadvantageous to structures. Aiming at this problem, a finite element model of the zero block in the negative moment zone of a semi-floating cable-stayed bridge is built, and the local mechanical performance of the bridge deck under completed status is studied. Based on the analysis results, three improvement measures have been proposed. The improvement effect of each method and composed of three methods has been studied. The numerical results show that the whole zero block zone is in the compressed state under the combined action of the bending moment and axial force of the stay cable. However, the local negative moment effect in the zero block zone is very prominent under the support of the diaphragm plate. Removing parts of the diaphragm plate at the bearing position can significantly improve local mechanical behavior in the concrete deck, which transfers the local support to the adjacent two diaphragm plates. The composed improvement effect is prominent when the three measures are adopted simultaneously.