Bending performance of steel–polyurethane sandwich plate under local distributed load

Abstract

As a civil engineering application, a composite sandwich plate is introduced into a new or reinforced orthotropic steel bridge deck to reduce the stress concentration of the deck under wheel loading and the amount of stiffening ribs required. For a steel–polyurethane sandwich plate, based on the existing basic differential equation of bending, analytical formulas for stress and deflection at any point of the sandwich plate with four sides simply supported are deduced under a vertical, local uniform load in which wheel loading has been simulated. Sandwich plates of the same material, size, condition of support, and load are tested; the key points of stress and deflection are calculated; and the test results are compared. The results demonstrate that the analytical calculation formulas are reliable and meet engineering accuracy requirements.