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A girder ('gɜrdər) is a beam used in construction. It is the main horizontal support of a structure which supports smaller beams. Girders often have an I-beam cross section composed of two load-bearing flanges separated by a stabilizing web, but may also have a box shape, Z shape, or other forms. Girders are commonly used to build bridges. A girt is a vertically aligned girder placed to resist shear loads. Small steel girders are rolled into shape.
A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually something that is otherwise difficult or impossible to cross. There are many different designs of bridges, each serving a particular purpose and applicable to different situations.
In materials science, fatigue is the initiation and propagation of cracks in a material due to cyclic loading. Once a fatigue crack has initiated, it grows a small amount with each loading cycle, typically producing striations on some parts of the fracture surface. The crack will continue to grow until it reaches a critical size, which occurs when the stress intensity factor of the crack exceeds the fracture toughness of the material, producing rapid propagation and typically complete fracture of the structure.
Analytical prediction methods for axial stresses and deflections at the serviceability limit state and for ultimate failure loads are proposed for hybrid bridge girders consisting of FRP bridge decks
2006
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This paper reports on the composite action developed between pultruded FRP bridge deck systems and the supporting main girders for road bridges. Presented are requirements that an FRP deck must satisf
2006
Up until today reinforced concrete has been used in most cases for the manufacturing of bridge decks. Depending on the quality of the work carried out, defects can already occur after only a few years