Light Polymer Cement Mortar Pavement for Orthotropic Steel Bridge Decks: Fid-Bau Portal

Light Polymer Cement Mortar Pavement for Orthotropic Steel Bridge Decks

Li, Xuelian / Chen, Yuliang

The mechanical behavior of pavement on orthotropic steel bridge deck with rib stiffener, longitudinal clapboard and diaphragm was analyzed at first by finite element method. It shows that the larger the elastic modulus of the intermediate layer, the less stress in the critical fatigue parts of the surfacing and the more favorable to the whole deck pavement. So it is necessary to exploit a stiffer cement-based transition layer to improve the mechanical condition between bridge deck and pavement. Then, in terms of the advantage and great achievements of light concrete and polymer modified cement concrete in civil engineering, reasonable materials were selected and their mixing ratios were designed to prepare light polymer cement mortar (LPCM) with both advantages suitable for transition layer for the steel bridge deck pavement. And compressive strength, flexural strength, fatigue performance, characteristics of stress-strain curves and modification mechanism were analysed. The results turn out that (1) the density of the developed mortar is about $1,800 kg / m^{3}$ and the mortar is light mortar; (2) acrylic acid emulsion can decrease water-cement ratio, improve paste working property, increase flexibility and crack resistance of the mortar, and there is a best dosage. Mechanism analysis shows that high-tensile strength of the polymer membrane is the basic reason to significantly improve LPCM mechanical properties. It means that light polymer mortar is an excellent flexible cement composing material and it can be used at some place where thickness, weight and flexibility have special requirement such as bridge deck pavement, etc.