الفهرس 
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Abstract
The arch action affects the ultimate load capacity of deck slabs. Arch action can be fully harnessed if the slab is confined adequately in both the longitudinal and transverse directions. In the transverse direction, welding steel straps to the top of the girders can provide the confinement. The confmement in longitudinal direction is provided by connecting the slab to the girders by means of suitable shear connectors, and by providing edge beams with large flexural stiffuess in the plan of the slab. The steel-free deck slab is built using fiber reinforced concrete to control cracking due to shrinkage, creep and variation of temperature. Others carried out experimental investigation of deck slabs without internal steel reinforcement. They used five models: the first and second models did not have steel straps connecting the top flanges of the girders. The failure of the deck slabs of these two models was flexural which affected the entire slab in each case. The third and fourth models were constructed with transverse steel straps connecting the top of the girder flanges. The mode of failure in the slabs of the thlrd and fourth models for loads well away from transverse free edges was that of a punching shear. The fifth model was performed to explain the effect of the edge beam and intermediate diaphragms. Five composite bridges have been recently constructed which are all discussed in details here. A 3-D finite element model is adopted to study the behavior of each structural component of the new system. The model is verified against the available experimental results. Then the FEM is used to study the effect of different parameters on the behavior of steel-free deck slab. Conclusions and recommendations for future work are presented.