FE Analysis Versus Experimental Test Results of FRP Deck System

The growing need of durability enhancement for road bridge decks has recently caused the big impulse for research on a new, durable, lightweight and easy to handle bridge decks, made of advanced materials, f.e. FRP (fibre reinforced polymers). Therefore, in the frame of UE 7FP project PANTURA, three structural solutions of sandwich FRP bridge deck have been elaborated, fabricated and tested under static load. The panels are planned to form a deck slab in a vehicular girder bridge. The span of 2.4 m in a simply supported system was adopted as a typical span length. After the panels were manufactured by the vacuum assisted resin transfer molding method (VARTM) they were tested in the laboratory under static load. At the same time, a numerical model based on the finite element method was created to analyse panels’ behaviour under the test load. The paper contains a short description of the experiment procedure, FE analysis and a comparison of results obtained from tests with results obtained by means of numerical simulations.