Decrease In Strength Capacity Research Articles

Study on ultra‐low cycle fatigue fracture of thick‐walled steel bridge piers

AbstractSteel structures with thick‐walled section tend to have local fracture before the occurrence of instability under strong earthquakes, which is termed as ultra‐low cycle fatigue (ULCF). In this study, a series of specimens made with structural steel Q345qC for bridge in China were firstly tested to investigate the ULCF fracture behaviour in material level. Based on the test data, three models for ULCF fracture were calibrated. Subsequently, the fracture behaviour of thick‐walled square section steel bridge piers were also investigated in component level. Moreover, the finite element global and submodels of steel bridge piers were established, and ULCF fracture initiation life was predicted by calibrated models and validated against test results. The research results showed that the crack firstly occurred at the bottom of piers under cyclic oblique loading, which was at the junction between base plate and bottom weld, and then, cracks propagated along the bottom weld metal which did not cause a decrease in strength capacity. Finally, the strength capacity of steel bridge piers began to rapidly declined as cracks propagated into base metal. The presented finite element global model can accurately simulate the cyclic behaviour of steel bridge piers, and the submodel has the ability of capturing the local stress and plastic strain. The fracture models accurately predicted ULCF fracture initiation life of steel bridge piers with the average discrepancy of 7.14%. The developed finite element analysis method considering ULCF fracture provides a solution for the further parametric analysis on ULCF fracture performance of steel bridge piers.

Extremely Low-Cycle Fatigue Tests of Thick-Walled Steel Bridge Piers

To study extremely low-cycle fatigue performance of steel bridge structures, a total of nine steel bridge piers with unstiffened thick-walled box sections were tested in this study. The effects of various parameters, including cross-sectional shape (with or without an extension part), loading pattern, and width-thickness and slenderness ratios were investigated. Experimental results demonstrate that ductile cracks occurred at the column base in all specimens regardless of cyclic-loading histories and that ductile crack initiation life is sensitive to loading pattern, cross-sectional shape, and the width-thickness ratio. In all tests, the ductile crack began in the pier-to-base weld, and subsequent cyclic loads resulted in the ductile cracks growing at the weld toes along web and flange directions and then propagating into the base metal, which triggered an obvious decrease in strength capacity. A significant delay was observed between ductile crack initiation and maximum strength capacity. Moreover, ductile crack initiation and propagation may be accompanied by local buckling.