Lateral stability of prestressed precast concrete girders during lifting: study case

Improvements in concrete technology, reinforcing systems and manufacturing processes enable the use of increasingly long reinforced precast concrete girders, contributing to the competitiveness of girders in concrete in comparison with other alternatives. The weight of the girders should be limited however, in order to achieve an optimum between span length and lifting and transportations costs. The current tendency in design is to minimize the width of the flanges, thus the girder becoming more flexible laterally and more prone to suffer instability phenomena during transient loading situations. An increasing number of accidents and damages associated with this instability problem are reported in the technical literature (e.g., Hurff 2010; Rose 2013). The main objective of this study is to describe a real case of lateral instability of a long prestressed concrete bridge girder during lifting as well asto perform a parametric study to understand the limits of the problem observed. Special attention is paid to the evaluation of the provisions gathered in the Model Code 2010 (MC - 2010) regarding the lateral stability, since these might not be sufficient to cover limit cases.