Abstract

In the paper, two different types of soil-steel bridges are described i.e. the first being characterized by the minimal construction time (several days) and the second built according to the standard technology of erection for such structures. On the basis of in situ tests of typical soil-steel bridge it has been shown in the paper that under pulsating load the soil backfill, although being bounded either from the top by pavement and from the bottom by steel shell behaves like standard loose material. This feature of soil-steel bridges is common either for the structures being at the stage of construction and also already in service. The idea of pulsating load and the adequate loading of soil cover during back-filling was utilized at the construction of circular shaped pipe soil-steel structure. The steel shell was laid on the weak soil. The shortening of building time and simplification of erection technology has been gained for this case. Although two different types of structures of soil-steel bridges were considered in the study, both cases have shown similar performance of the shell structure in reaction to the load through pulsations of soil backfilling. The identical behavior of soil backfill being typical as for the loose material is confirmed by in situ tests.