Experimental investigation on fatigue behavior of steel reinforced concrete composite beam-to-girder joints

Abstract

Fatigue behavior and failure mechanism of steel reinforced concrete (SRC) beam-to-girder joints is discussed in this paper, which is intended for use in high-speed railway station structures due to their high stiffness and load capacity. Three identical SRC beam-to-girder joint specimens were designed and tested under static loading and two stages of fatigue loading. In the first stage of fatigue loading, the specimens were subjected to design fatigue load for 2 million cycles, while during the second stage, the specimens were loaded to failure under increased fatigue loading amplitude in order to know its fatigue strength and failure mechanism. The constructional details of SRC beam-to-girder joint specimen and the method of loading and testing are presented. The comparison in structural behavior of the joint is made between under static and fatigue loading. Fatigue failure characteristics of the joint are described in detail. It is found that the SRC beam-to-girder joints remained in their elastic range and the concrete surface crack did not exceed 0.1 mm when subjected to design static loading and 2 million cycles of design fatigue loading. There was no significant difference in structural behavior of each component of SRC composite beam between static and fatigue loading. Fatigue failure occurred after these joints were applied higher-level fatigue loading for another 0.70 to 0.91 million cycles. Fatigue crack was initiated at the tension flange of I-shape steel of beam connected by welding to the flange of I-shape steel of girder or at the hole in tension flange of I-shape steel of beam, and then the crack propagated along flange width and web height of the I-shape steel in beam until the I-shape steel lost loading capacity due to lack of enough cross section. The fatigue behavior of constructional detail of the I-shape steel played a key role in the fatigue strength of the SRC beam-to-girder joints. Discussions on improving the fatigue strength of SRC beam-to-girder joints and future research aspects are presented finally.