Influence of initial temperature method on temperature distributions on concrete box girder cross-sections

The accuracy of initial temperature method is the key issue of the research on the temperature distributions on concrete box girder cross-sections. In order to analyze the influence of different initial temperature methods on the temperature distributions on concrete box girder cross-sections, a concrete box girder bridge was chosen as case study. Comparing with the measured data, it can be found that the method on using the same environmental conditions imposed cyclically for several days is necessary. Considering the difficulty of data collection, application scope and calculation accuracy, the initial temperature method assuming the air temperature at 0 am of the target date as the initial temperature, and the air temperature, wind speed and solar radiation of the target date imposed cyclically as the boundary conditions is proposed as the initial temperature method of the finite element model to carry out the research on the temperature distributions on girder cross-sections.