Comparative Structural Analysis of a Steel–Concrete Composite Bridge Deck: A Case Study of the Tramway Crossing over the Navile Canal in Bologna

The thesis compares two different bridge deck configurations for the new tramway in Bologna. These bridge decks share most of the geometrical properties but in the second one, torsional bracings are adopted in order to investigate the advantages that these elements can bring in terms of structural efficiency. At first, the analysis was carried out analytically, using theoretical models: Courbon-Albenga was used for the girder bridge deck, while Bredt was used for the box-girder bridge deck instead. The outcome suggested that using torsional bracings helps reducing bending moment at mid-span in the most stressed girder. This result was further investingated, implementing both decks on MIDAS CIVIL NX 2025 and creating two numerical models. This also produced the same result, namely a reduction in bending moment at mid-span for the most-stressed girder in the bridge deck where torsional bracings were adopted. This however, was proven to be a coincidence given that, the comparison between each analytical model and its corresponding FEM model didn't provide the same results. However these discrepancies were expected; in the thesis the reasons which led to such different results were extensively addressed .