Fatigue life estimation for reinforced concrete bridge deck

In order to ensure the service safety, it is necessary to evaluate the fatigue life of concrete bridge decks. The fatigue life estimation and prediction models for concrete bridge decks were proposed based on the theory of cumulative fatigue damage, wheel loading test data and the correlation coefficient of actual bridge deck fatigue life and tested fatigue life. Based on the fatigue life estimation model of concrete bridge decks, the effects of the different standard fatigue vehicles in BS5400, Eurocode, AASHTO design codes and truck overload were evaluated. The results show that the technical parameters of the different standard fatigue vehicles have obvious effect on the fatigue life, so a special fatigue vehicle model for concrete bridge decks should be developed; wheel live load spectrum value of BS5400 is the preferred choice under no traffic detection data; the fatigue life of concrete bridge decks decreases greatly at truck overload of 20%, and the fatigue life is less than 10 years at truck overload of 40%. So the trucks with 20% overload must be strictly prohibited to pass the operation concrete bridges.