bridge engineering, transverse internal force, energy variational method, box girder with a trapezoidal cross-section, distortion, Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General), TA1-2040

This study investigated the transverse internal force of a box girder with a trapezoidal cross-section under eccentric loading. The effects of the box girder distortion and frame shear difference on the transverse internal force were considered. An energy variation method based on the minimum potential energy principle was adopted for transverse internal force analysis of the frames. The variable shear difference of the top slab was considered an unknown quantity, and a fourth-order governing differential equation was established. The transverse bending moment of the frame was obtained by solving for the shear difference. Two examples were used to verify the proposed method and analyse the differences between the transverse internal force results calculated using different methods. The effect of the distribution of the box-girder distorted transverse bending moment on each slab was investigated for various stiffness ratios. The results showed that the transverse internal force of the box girder calculated using the proposed method agreed well with the finite element results, with a maximum error of less than 9.68 %. When the stiffness ratio of the box girder increased, the distribution of the distorted transverse bending moment on the top slab increased, whereas that on the bottom slab decreased.