Thermal field characteristic analysis of steel bridge deck during high-temperature asphalt pavement paving

The steel bridge deck undergoes significant temperature changes during the high-temperature paving of asphalt pavement, and the non-uniform thermal field distribution herein affects the performance of pavement composite system. In this paper, the thermal field characteristic of the steel bridge deck during asphalt pavement paving was presented based on in-situ monitoring of the Tongling Yangtze River Bridge (TL Bridge) and numerical simulation. Firstly, the monitoring schemes were proposed to monitor the temperature changes of the steel bridge deck during the paving process, and the 3-D temperature distribution of the steel bridge deck was summarized. Secondly, a thermal field model of steel box girder was established according to the transient temperature field theory, and the element deletion method was used to simulate the process of paving construction. Subsequently, the thermal field model was validated by the monitoring results. Thirdly, the validated thermal field model was used to evaluate the sensitive factors that could affect the temperature distribution of the steel bridge deck during asphalt pavement paving. Finally, the critical temperature load formula was fitted, in which the sensitive factors were considered by introducing sensitive parameters.