Evaluation of Cast-in-Place Splice Regions of Spliced I-Girder Bridges

Modern spliced girder bridges consist of precast, pretensioned concrete girders joined together at cast-in-place (CIP) splice regions and made continuous through post-tensioning. Despite the growing use of spliced girders, relatively little research has focused on the behavior of the discontinuity created at the splice regions. An experimental program was conducted to study the strength and behavior of the CIP splice regions of spliced I-girders. The program focused on the shear behavior and shear failure mechanism of spliced girders containing post-tensioned CIP splice regions located within the span lengths of the girders. Two tests were conducted on large-scale spliced girder specimens. Large flexural demands permitted the flexural behaviors of the specimens to be evaluated as well. The test results revealed that the shear behavior of the spliced girder specimens was comparable to that of monolithically cast post-tensioned I-girders.