2023 Volume 69A Pages 58-68
Although B-live load is applied to bridge designs at present, considerable bridges had been designed with TL-20 in the previous design specifications. Most of these existing non-conformed bridges seem to be insufficient in load-carrying capacity under the current design code. In this study, a procedure for evaluating site-specific live load factors based on the actual traffic data for existing bridges is proposed. Two site-specific traffic data and three different girder bridges are employed to estimate live load factors for existing bridges as case study examples. The proposed method utilizes traffic-flow simulation and the generalized extreme-value distribution functions. The return period of the maximum bending moment for existing bridges is assigned to two intervals of the periodic bridge inspection.
