Heat curving is commonly used in the fabrication of curved structural steel bridge girders. A two-dimensional superposition analysis known as the Duhamel Analogy was used for numerical modeling in the development of the AASHTO code provisions. This iterative analysis can take into consideration multiple heating–cooling cycles, initial residual stresses, temperature-dependent material properties, and the nonlinear temperature distribution across the girder cross section. A simplified analysis based on the Duhamel Analogy that can be carried out by using hand calculations is described. The curvatures obtained by this method are within 15% of the measured curvatures, which are very comparable to the results obtained by using the Duhamel Analogy or the three-dimensional, nonlinear, finite element solution. The background, basis, and steps required for the proposed analysis are described; and an illustrative numerical example is presented. The proposed analysis may be used to estimate curvatures or to determine the maximum fabrication temperature and the heating width for a single heating–cooling cycle for steels such as high-performance steel not covered by the current AASHTO provisions.
Matrix Iterative Analysis
