Enhanced Method of Predicting Tensile Strength Degradation of Steel Bridge Members Due to Corrosion

Abstract

Corrosion played a significant role in the catastrophic collapse of many aged steel bridge infrastructures around the world. Those damages and many reviewed patents intensified the importance of careful evaluation of existing structures for the feasibility of current usage and strengthening them by retrofitting some selected corroded members to ensure the public safety. Only experimental approach is not enough to estimate the remaining strength of corroded members as actual corroded surfaces are different from each other. However in modern practices, numerical simulation is being used to replace the time-consuming and expensive experimental work and to comprehend on the lack of knowledge on mechanical behavior, stress distribution, ultimate behavior and so on. This paper comprises the non-linear FEM analysis results of many actual corroded plates with different corrosion conditions and a simple and comprehensive analytical method is developed by measuring the maximum corroded depth (tc,max) only, for the utilization of recently developed numerical techniques in assessment of the state of corrosion and consequences for the safety of old steel bridges. Keywords: Bridge maintenance, corrosion, FEM analysis, maximum corroded depth, residual strength, steel bridges, tensile test.