Fatigue Life of Girders with Trapezoidal Corrugated Webs
Publication: Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 132, Issue 7
Abstract
Fatigue design criteria are necessary to design steel corrugated web girders for highway bridges. The paper presents research on the fatigue life of steel bridge I-girders with trapezoidal web corrugations. Eight large-scale test girders were fabricated from HPS 485W steel and fatigue-tested in four-point bending. The web-to-flange fillet welds were made using semiautomatic gas metal arc welding (GMAW) or robotic GMAW. Fatigue cracks initiated in the tension flange at the web-to-flange fillet weld toe along the inclined web folds and adjacent bend regions, and propagated in the flange. The results demonstrate that steel corrugated web I-girders exhibit a fatigue life that is longer than that of conventional steel I-girders with transverse stiffeners. For design of corrugated web I-girders, the Category design curve of the AASHTO LRFD specifications is recommended for finite life fatigue design calculations, and a value of is recommended for the constant amplitude fatigue limit.
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Acknowledgments
This research was conducted at the ATLSS Center and Fritz Laboratory at Lehigh University. The writers are grateful for funding provided by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, the Federal Highway Administration, and the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development through a grant to the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Technology Alliance (PITA). The writers also thank T. Macioce, S. Kopp, R. Kase, W. Wassef, and M. Elgaaly, as well as ATLSS Center and Fritz Laboratory technical staff for their contributions. The test girders were fabricated by High Steel Structures, Inc. The findings, opinions, and conclusions expressed in the paper are the writers’, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of those acknowledged here.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 132 • Issue 7 • July 2006
Pages: 1070 - 1078
Copyright
© 2006 ASCE.
History
Received: Feb 10, 2005
Accepted: Jul 15, 2005
Published online: Jul 1, 2006
Published in print: Jul 2006
Notes
Note. Associate Editor: Scott A. Civjan
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