Dr. Pedro Silva and project co-investigators, Dr. Samer Hamdar and Dr. Sameh Badie, have received a three-year, $299,195 grant from the Federal Highway Administration. The primary objectives of this project, titled “Design and Detailing Guidelines for Enhanced Security and Safety of Bridges against Human-Made Hazards,” are to: 1) estimate the average daily truck traffic along a test bed site in the state of Virginia transportation system; 2) estimate the frequency and severity of heavy truck collisions and the likelihood of collisions resulting in severe damage or the collapse of bridges; 3) evaluate the resiliency of bridges against collisions resulting from heavy truck collisions; and 4) evaluate potential cascading effects resulting from these accidental non-natural multiple hazard scenarios.
Results from this research will be used to develop specifications that can be used by civil engineers in assessing the vulnerability of bridges using analytical and/or experimental methods. Finally, these design tools will be validated and calibrated based on experimental data by conducting a series of physical tests of bridge columns under high impulse loads in the high bay laboratory at GW.