New developments on fatigue in Eurocode on steel structures

Abstract

The design rules for the verification of civil engineering steel structures against fatigue are compiled in the European harmonized design standard Eurocode EN 1993-1-9 released in 2005. This design standard is currently under revision, together with all other Eurocode design standards. Besides the inclusion of new developments and clarification, this revision aims for an improvement of user-friendliness and an extended degree of harmonization by reducing the number of Nationally Determined Parameters. The structure of the revised standard has also been modified to facilitate the application of the standard. In addition, the following major changes have been implemented: (i) Improvement of S-N curves in terms of the nominal stress method: clarification of stress computation, and re-organization of detail category tables. (ii) Improvement and extension of design rules for the hot-spot-stress and inclusion of design rules for the effective notch stress methods, in separate annexes. (iii) New annexes to determine the most common magnification and stress concentration factors for the modified nominal stress method as well as the stress ranges in preloaded bolts. Meanwhile, the final document of the project of the European design standard Eurocode prEN 1993-1-9 has been submitted to the “CEN Enquiry”. Thereafter it will go through the “Formal Vote”, planned for October 2024, before replacing the 2005 version throughout Europe.