Critical review of design of slab bridges as per IRC 112:2011

Abstract

Earlier in India, for the design of concrete bridges, IRC 18 and 21 were used which are based on working stress method.Later the codes were combined to IRC 112-2011 which is based on ultimate limit state method. IRC 112-2011 provides a very interesting design method based on a three-layer sandwich model for the design of flexural members. This method is based on three dimensional linear elastic finite element analysis. The three-layer sandwich model got evolved from the Wood Armer method which was recommended in the earlier version of Eurocode; EN1992-1-1:2001. This paper intends to compare the area of reinforcement obtained from the two design methods with the popular effective width method provided in IRC 112-2011 which is an empirical method. Slab culverts with varying spans subjected to different loading conditions provided in IRC 6-2016 are compared for the parametric study.