(gentle music)
- [Announcer] Bridge engineers,
working with the strut and tie modeling technique.
Now have a much clear understanding of its design needs.
Thanks to researchers
with the Center For Transportation Research
at the University of Texas.
In part, the strut and tie analysis
will help create safer bridges and more consistent designs.
- So the specification currently requires footings
to be designed by strut and tie analysis,
but the strut and tie analysis provisions
were based on the testing of deep beams and not footings.
So this research was hoping to extend the knowledge
and better represent the footing behavior.
- Designers were making a variety of different decisions
because the specifications are not clear
as to the decision making process
that resulted in some design details
with constructability issues
some details that are overly conservative
and others that made TxDOT engineers question
their viability.
- The research was successful
in accomplishing our main goal.
We were able to refine the design procedures
and increase our understanding of the footing behavior.
This was accomplished by 16 full-scale test specimens
and then Finite Element Analysis to verify the test results
of the physical tests.
- We tested some footings in a scale
and loading scheme that is more realistic if you will
than what's been done before or more comprehensive
is probably a better way of putting it.
Detailed Finite Element Analysis
to where additional insights were gained
led our team to reach conclusions
that basically provided a lot of clarification
as to what to do and what not to do.
- We will look at all of the recommendations
and they were a lot.
This research project was really like,
six research projects put together.
There was a lot of information we got from this.
So we'll look at all of their recommendations
and decide which ones we wanna adopt.
And we may change our design practice accordingly.
- [Announcer] For more information
and define the publications for this project.
Please visit the TxDOT Research Library
at the link shown below.