Study on the temperature field and thermal stress in the concrete box girder bridges

Concrete bridge structures are usually exposed to the natural environment. Because of sunshine, wind, precipitation, etc natural environment influence, the concrete structure is changing temperature. With the poor thermal conductive performance of concrete, the upper structure temperature gradient appears while the temperature is changing. The existence of the nonlinear temperature field will lead to thermal stress in concrete bridge structure. The temperature of the variable cross-section box girder section has been observed for three months. Based on the actual observations, simplifying the system necessarily and reasonably and choosing the corresponding boundary conditions according to the project needs, the selected variable cross-section box girder section on temperature field is analyzed and calculated by using the finite element software ABAQUS.