Institute for Transportation

The Ontario Highway Bridge Design Code (OHBDC) is the first bridge code in North America which is based entirely on the concept of Limit States Design (LSD). The objective of the calibration study presented in this report was to compare designs resulting from the new LSD specifications for the design of wood bridges, with those by the Working Stress Design (WSD) methods of other codes. The study was not performed as a means of making adjustments to the OHBDC to suit previous practices, but to pinpoint areas of the OHBDC which may need reviewing prior to publication. A number of areas were reviewed as a result of an initial calibration study and some changes were introduced to both the wood section and the analysis section of the OHBDC.