Fatigue of welds in orthotropic bridge deck panels with trapezoidal stiffeners

Abstract

The problem investigated in this paper concerns the fatigue resistance, under transverse bending, of the welds between a trapezoidal stiffener and the deck plate in orthotropic bridge decks. Laboratory tests carried out on small test pieces under loadings consistent with the actual traffic loads, showed that for usual deck panels executed without any particular attention (no preparation of the edges of the stiffeners, lack of penetration of the plate-to-stiffener welds of about two thirds of the thickness of the stiffener), the range Δσ (2 x 106 cycles) of the transverse stresses at the level of the weld root in the stiffener may be adopted equal to 80 N/mm2.