Effect of Poisson's ratio and beam spacing on grillage analysis of slab bridges
It is now well established, strictly speaking, that a grillage composed solely of orthogonal beams can be used for the analysis of slab bridges only when the Poisson's ratio (v) of the slab material is taken to be zero. The effect on the various responses of using a grillage composed solely of orthogonal beams, and ignoring v, is discussed in this paper, and a method is given to account for the effect on transverse moments of making this simplifying assumption. The paper also contains procedures to determine the peak values of the various responses, as well as their integrated values over a given width of the bridge. Using these procedures, it is shown that the spacings of grillage beams in the conceptual grillages used for analysis do not influence the results as much as is generally believed. Key word: grillage analogy, longitudinal moment, Poisson's ratio, slab bridges, transverse moments.