Fatigue life estimates for a slender orthotropic steel deck: Fid-Bau Portal

Fatigue life estimates for a slender orthotropic steel deck

Battista, Ronaldo C. / Pfeil, Michèle S. / Carvalho, Eliane M.L.

AbstractFatigue cracks in several types of welded joints and geometrical details have been reported to occur in a large number of slender orthotropic decks of existing steel bridges in many parts of the world. Some of these cracks are initiated very early, a few years after the bridge is brought into service. That is why it is said that fatigue life estimation for the welded joints of orthotropic decks is not an easy designing task. This is so because the random variation of local stresses is sensitive to many factors, in particular to those involved in the dynamic interaction between the vehicle’s tyres, the pavement and the steel structure.This paper presents and discusses the main causes for the observed cracks and the outcome of the ultimate fatigue life estimates for typical welded and geometrical details of a slender orthotropic deck with trapezoidal cross-section longitudinal ribs. This is the deck of an existing long-span steel bridge, which has been strengthened by adding a reinforced concrete layer fixed with shear studs to the steel deck top plate. This was done to avoid continued and extensive repair work and to enhance the fatigue life expectancy of the steel deck structure. The fatigue life estimation is done with the aid of refined numerical modelling and in situ experimental strain measurements and also by taking into account all the built-in structural alterations, changes in volume of traffic and in vehicles loading which have occurred during this bridge’s 32 years of service life.