Recent content by hokie66

Don't confuse member strength and stiffness with performance under load. The larger section is both stronger and stiffer, but because it is on a longer span, it may be more highly stressed and may deflect more under the same load.

In the case you described, there is a bending moment due to the eccentricity of the prestressing force at the damaged section. Much the same as the moment, thus the curvature, created by intentionally eccentric prestressing.

All the other issues are important, but as you requested, I was just trying to deal with whether or not the bearing plate achieved uniform pressure on the wall. It will not do that in the designed configuration. One way of achieving more uniform bearing would be to add an end plate to the beam...

I know that this is a physics forum, not engineering, but as an old structural engineer, I would never rely on a extended plate in that manner to redistribute the stress under the beam. The principle is that the load follows the stiffness, so the plate extension beyond the end of the beam will...

The spreader plate will do little, if anything to distribute the load or reduce the bearing stress. As the beam is many times stiffer than the plate, the load will essentially all be carried by the brick which is directly under the beam. Bearing plates, or spreader plates, are used to...

The I35W bridge was not a steel arch, it was a three span steel truss bridge.