Fatigue Durability Analysis for Suspenders of Arch Bridge Subjected to Moving Vehicles in Southwest China

Abstract

An analysis of the effect of vehicle loads on the fatigue life of local arch bridge suspenders in Southwest China was conducted by generating vehicle statistics, creating a fatigue vehicle model, and developing a fatigue life prediction method: First, the Midas model of an arch bridge was established, a random vehicle flow simulation was conducted in the Monte Carlo method, and the stress spectrum of the suspenders was calculated. Secondly, ANSYS software was used to estimate the fatigue life of the suspenders, and the accuracy of the proposed method was verified. Finally, the method was applied to the practical project of the Dafeng River Bridge in Southwest China. The results show that this method can predict the fatigue life of suspenders. It can be applied in the bridge health monitoring software system to realize real-time fatigue damage monitoring of the fatigue damage of suspenders, which could be used to predict the fatigue lives of bridges in Southwest China and provide references for the replacement of suspenders.