Analysis and Experimental Investigation on Fatigue Performance of Tensile-Plate Anchorage Based on the Theory of Critical Distances

Tensile-plate anchorage (TPA) is widely used in steel cable-stayed bridges. However, due to the complex geometry of the anchorage, the stress concentration area will appear under the action of the dynamic load, leading to fatigue failure. In this paper, taking a cable-stayed bridge as an example, the theoretical analysis and experimental investigation of the fatigue performance of TPA are performed. At first, a full-bridge finite element model was set up to obtain the severest cable force and cable force amplitude under fatigue load. Then the fatigue test of 1:1.5 specimen was carried out. The maximum principal stress of TPA was 32.24 MPa and the maximum deformation was 1.6 mm. During the loading process, TPA was in elastic working state. After 2 million fatigue load cycles, no cracks were found. At last, the fatigue performance of TPA was analyzed with the theory of critical distances (TCD). The results of the theoretical analysis and fatigue test show that the fatigue performance of TPA could satisfy the use requirement.