Abstract
Fatigue damage accumulations would dramatically reduce the reliability and service life of the orthotropic steel decks. Incorrect fatigue assessment results may be obtained when load sequence effects are omitted. In the present study, fatigue reliability assessments of rib-to-deck weld joints in orthotropic steel bridge decks are conducted with the consideration of load sequence effects. The method, which judiciously considers the fatigue loading history and is derived from the sequential law and the whole-range S-N curve, is first proposed for fatigue reliability calculation. And then, the whole-range S-N curve describing the fatigue propagating process of the rib-to-deck weld joint is introduced. Finally, the developed method is applied to evaluate the fatigue reliability of two rib-to-deck weld joints in an orthotropic steel deck based on long-term measured strain histories. The influence of traffic growth and initial damage on the fatigue reliability is discussed. The results indicate that it is advisable to consider load sequence effects when assessing the fatigue reliability of orthotropic steel decks equipped with long-term strain monitoring systems and the initial damage significantly reduces the fatigue reliability of orthotropic steel decks.
Highlights
The orthotropic steel deck is one of the most popular vehicle-supporting systems and widely used in steel bridges especially in these long-span cable-supported bridges because of its light weight, expedient construction, high load-carrying capacity, and structural redundancy (Heng et al, 2017; Maljaars et al, 2018; Yang et al, 2020)
The fatigue reliability of rib-to-deck weld joints in orthotropic steel decks is assessed based on long-term field monitoring stress histories, in which the fatigue damage is calculated by the sequential law so that the load sequence effects could be reasonably considered
Fatigue reliability assessment is an indispensable issue when investigating the serviceability of long-span bridges equipped with orthotropic steel decks
Summary
The orthotropic steel deck is one of the most popular vehicle-supporting systems and widely used in steel bridges especially in these long-span cable-supported bridges because of its light weight, expedient construction, high load-carrying capacity, and structural redundancy (Heng et al, 2017; Maljaars et al, 2018; Yang et al, 2020). Fatigue cracks in orthotropic steel decks have been frequently reported in Europe, United States, Japan, and China (Fisher and Barsom, 2016) To this end, developing reliable methods for evaluating the fatigue performance of orthotropic steel decks and further making optimal decisions regarding structure replacement and other major retrofits becomes a research Frontier. Fatigue damages may be under- or overestimated when variable amplitude loading is applied (Zakaria et al, 2016) This may be one of the main reasons why fatigue cracks have been found frequently in orthotropic steel decks only a few years after bridges were opened to traffic. The fatigue reliability of rib-to-deck weld joints in orthotropic steel decks is assessed based on long-term field monitoring stress histories, in which the fatigue damage is calculated by the sequential law so that the load sequence effects could be reasonably considered.
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