Experimental and Numerical Study on the Anchorage of Safety Barriers to Bridge Corbels

Post-installed systems for the anchorage of safety barriers to bridge corbels are widely used today thanks to their flexibility and easiness of installation. Because of commonly-found in-situ boundary constraints, however, the design requirements for fasteners and post-installed rebars are frequently not satisfied or only partially satisfied. This paper presents an innovative solution concerning the placement of post-installed reinforcement in RC members. With reference to the refurbishment of bridge corbels – which usually requires concrete removal in the damaged top layers – the proposed method is based on the introduction of additional U-shaped post-installed rebars connecting the existing portion of the corbel to the newly-cast top layer, in order to allow the transfer of the pull-out force exerted by the posts supporting the safety barrier. The layout investigated in this paper consists of three anchors connecting the end-plate of the post supporting the safety barrier to the corbel (a commonly-found layout in Italy). These anchors transfer the external actions (bending moment and shear) to the corbel thanks to the formation of a strut-and-tie system where the U-shaped rebars and the existing reinforcement play a crucial role. The tests on real-scale specimens are also modelled numerically and checked by means of design-oriented models.