Fatigue assessment of 100 years old riveted truss railway bridge

Abstract

Fatigue is one of the most often reasons for failure in existing steel bridges, particularly with riveted structure. Therefore fatigue assessment is always the most important part of the complex evaluation of existing steel bridges. The reliable fatigue assessment is often decisive in the estimation of the remaining service life of a bridge. The example of a comprehensive fatigue assessment of 100 years old riveted truss railway bridge, based on European procedures and codes, has been presented in the paper. The applied procedure is based on the safe life method in the convention of nominal stresses. The bridge assessment revealed, that the remaining fatigue strength was almost exhausted and the further service life of the bridge was close to zero. Taking into account the assessment results it was also revealed, that the existing riveted truss superstructure was not suitable for further use in the railway bridge after its rehabilitation, which aimed to extend the bridge service life by the next 50 years. Keywords: Railway bridge; Steel structure; Truss, riveted joints; Fatigue life