Abstract:
The selected Bridge which is located in Padeniya-Anuradhapura road is a steel truss bridge with three spans of
approximately 31m long. It is currently undergoing a development process which includes constructing a new
cantilever pedestrian walkway of 1.5 m in width of either side of the bridge. Because of this proposed cantilever foot
walk static as welt as dynamic loading will be changed. In order to ensure that the structure is safe under the additional
loads structural analysis uwr carried out for static condition as well as for dynamic condition and check the adequacy
of structural elements. Analyses of the bridge under static and dynamic loading were done by the finite element (FE)
method. The bridge model is such that the structural steel is idealized by beam elements and the deck is represented by
shear flexible shell elements. The support with elastomeric bearings is idealized by using an internal element with
linear springs. Modeling was carried out using commercial FE software package SAP2000. Structural Analysis
revealed that there is a kind of a vibration problem exists. As a solution for this vibration problem, this paper suggests
the effectiveness of using elastomeric bearings hence expanding life span of steel truss bridges.
