  A comparative analysis of two bridges constructed with the most commonly used
girder types in Florida is carried out. The girder types that the bridges are
employed for this study are AASHTO Type III (American Association of State
Highway and Transportation Officials) and Florida I-Beam. Two bridges that have
exactly the same specifications but with different girder type are analyzed
under baseline state and different prestress loss cases. Finite element models
of these bridges are utilized and the FE models are subjected to two types of
virtual load tests of Florida legal loads namely C5 and SU4. Florida I-Beam
tends to have higher load carrying capacity, higher lateral stiffness, cost
efficiency and better element level reliability when compared to AASHTO Type
girders.
