Fatigue Assessment of Critical Connections in a Historic Eyebar Suspension Bridge
Publication: Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 33, Issue 1
Abstract
The Hercílio Luz Bridge is an eyebar suspension bridge with a riveted girder built in 1926 in Brazil, in which severe fatigue damage was found after years of service. To provide guidance for rehabilitation of the bridge, a fatigue assessment is conducted under Eurocode fatigue load models to obtain stress ranges for the riveted and welded connections, as well as equivalent stress range and cumulative damage for the fatigue safety verification defined by Eurocode standards. Because the original design and construction of the bridge was completed per 1926 AASHTO requirements, for comparison, a fatigue assessment of the proposed rehabilitation is performed according to the more recent AASHTO recommended procedures. The floor-beam-to-truss and stringer-to-floor-beam connections, especially near the eyebar chain transition, are identified to be most prone to fatigue due to the occurrence of significant stress concentration. The predicted fatigue lives indicate that those connections may be weak and need to be strengthened. Analysis results reveal that the stresses under the Eurocode truck load are larger than those under the AASHTO truck load, due to larger gross weight and shorter total axle spacing of the Eurocode truck. In addition, the recommended number of cycles in both codes caused by a single passing truck is insufficient for connections under or near the loading position.
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Acknowledgments
Financial support from the Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT) through post-doctoral grant SFRH/BPD/107825/2015 and from the Federal University of Minas Gerais and Teixeira Duarte SA are gratefully acknowledged. Special thanks are given to Prof. Tong Guo at Southeast University, China, for his professional guidance and valuable discussion in the research process. The authors gratefully acknowledge the funding from FiberBridge—Fatigue strengthening and assessment of railway metallic bridges using fiber-reinforced polymers (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-030103) by FEDER funds through COMPETE2020 (POCI) and by national funds (PIDDAC) through the Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT/MCTES).
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Published In
Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 33 • Issue 1 • February 2019
Copyright
©2018 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 18, 2017
Accepted: Jul 13, 2018
Published online: Nov 9, 2018
Published in print: Feb 1, 2019
Discussion open until: Apr 9, 2019
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