Fatigue-Life Evaluation of a High-Speed Railway Bridge with an Orthotropic Steel Deck Integrating Multiple Factors
Publication: Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 30, Issue 5
Abstract
The driving security of trains at high speeds is among the pivotal issues significantly affected by the smoothness of rail lines. For high-speed railway steel bridges, the fatigue cracking of typical positions under the rail lines will reduce the stiffness of the deck plate, inducing the smoothing of the rail lines. In this paper, a new theoretical approach is proposed that integrates the fatigue assessment of a typical welded joint for high-speed railway steel bridges in service. Based on the strain history data recorded by a structural health monitoring system, the theoretical approach includes various factors, including stress concentration, environmental corrosion, and train flow. Upon application in an actual high-speed railway bridge with an orthotropic steel deck, the approach was used to conduct determinative and reliable fatigue-life evaluation of the bridge. A static-load experiment was conducted to obtain the stress distribution around the weld and the difference in stress between the positions of the weld and strain gauge. The effect of environmental corrosion integrated two aspects: increased stress and reduced fatigue resistance. Without consideration of train-weight growth, in conclusion, the fatigue life of a typical welded joint will be infinite even if the train flow grows constantly. In addition, the fatigue life of typical welded joints, determinative or reliable, may be less than the designed service period when the growth rate of the train weight reaches 5%.
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Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the National Basic Research Program of China (Program 973) (2015CB060000), the National Science and Technology Support Program of China (2014BAG07B01), the Key Program of National Natural Science Foundation (51438002), the Program of the National Natural Science Foundation (51578138, 51508251), the Program of the “Six Major Talent Summit” Foundation (1105000268), the Natural Science Fund for Colleges and Universities in Jiangsu Province (15KJB560005), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities and the Innovation Plan Program for Ordinary University Graduates of Jiangsu Province in 2014 (KYLX_0156), and the Scientific Research Foundation of the Graduate School of Southeast University (YBJJ1441).
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.
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Published In
Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 30 • Issue 5 • October 2016
Copyright
© 2016 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jul 27, 2015
Accepted: Jan 7, 2016
Published online: Apr 4, 2016
Discussion open until: Sep 4, 2016
Published in print: Oct 1, 2016
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