FATIGUE PROBLEMS IN HIGHWAY BRIDGES

During the past few years there has been an increasing incidence of fatigue cracking in the welded joints of modern steel bridges. Many examples have occurred in welds on main girders of short or medium span highway bridges having concrete decks, and in welded joints in orthotropic steel decks of temporary bridges and long span bridges. Design of British bridges is checked for lives of 120 years involving up to 7.10 to the 8th power cycles of stress. Calculations to assess fatigue require a realistic loading spectrum, reliable methods to obtain local stresses, and relevant S/N relationships between stresses and numbers of cycles to failure. This paper briefly describes some of the recent research to improve the background to these three steps for design of bridges, particularly those having orthotropic steel decks. The research includes investigation of the influence of surfacing, type of stress cycle, residual stress, plate thickness, cyclic frequency, rest-periods, weathering and consideration of programmed loading. /Author/

Media Info

  • Media Type: Print
  • Features: Figures; References;
  • Pagination: pp 93-101
  • Monograph Title: Bridge Engineering. Volume 1
  • Serial:

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 00183752
  • Record Type: Publication
  • ISBN: 0309026962
  • Files: TRIS, TRB
  • Created Date: Dec 3 1978 12:00AM