Cold Reinforcement and Evaluation of Steel Bridges with Fatigue Cracks
Publication: Journal of Bridge Engineering
Volume 23, Issue 4
Abstract
Cold reinforcement techniques refer to reinforcement methods that produce no or only low tensile residual stresses in structural details, avoiding new fatigue vulnerable details. To ensure the fatigue safety and extend the fatigue life of steel bridges, cold reinforcement techniques are proposed to stop the fatigue cracking of the critical details of orthotropic steel decks (OSDs) and web gap zones. Cold reinforcement techniques were evaluated by fatigue testing in the laboratory, in situ steel bridge case studies, and numerical fracture mechanics analysis using the extended FEM. Compared with drilling stop-holes, cold bonding of steel plates or bonding and bolting of steel angles have shown to effectively decrease local stresses, increase local rigidity, and extend fatigue lives. For in situ case studies on both a railway and a highway bridge, measured fatigue stress range spectra indicated that the bonding and bolting steel plate methods significantly enhance local rigidity and decrease local stresses. Numerical fracture mechanics results reveal fatigue stresses at the crack tip below the threshold of crack propagation.
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Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the financial support provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant 51578073); the Major State Basic Research Development Program of China (973 Program) and Subprogram (Grant 2015CB057703); the Special Fund for Basic Scientific Research of Central Colleges of the P.R. China, Chang’an University (Grants 10821153501, 310821153401, and 310821153314); the Applied Basic Research Program of the Ministry of Transport of the P.R. China (Grant 2014319812080); and the Doctor Postgraduate Technical Project of Chang’an University (Grant 2014G5290008). The authors gratefully acknowledge Professor Eugen Brühwiler in EPFL for modifying the language of this paper.
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Published In
Journal of Bridge Engineering
Volume 23 • Issue 4 • April 2018
Copyright
© 2018 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 28, 2016
Accepted: Oct 23, 2017
Published online: Feb 6, 2018
Published in print: Apr 1, 2018
Discussion open until: Jul 6, 2018
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