Institute for Transportation

Since early 1990, a major research and development program for stress laminated timber decks has been undertaken at the University of Technology, Sydney by the Roads and Traffic Authority NSW, the State Forests of NSW, Pine Australia and promotional organizations representing the timber industry. This paper presents an overview of serviceability and ultimate load testing of full sized decks under laboratory conditions and comments on the implications of the test results and analytical predictive models, as well as presenting a limit states design procedure for stress laminated timber bridge decks for use throughout Australia. Examples of prototype bridges now in service are also presented and discussed.