Remaining Fatigue Life Prediction of Welded Details in an Orthotropic Steel Bridge Deck

Orthotropic steel decks have been applied after World War II to long-span bridges due to several advantages, such as light weight, high strength, rapid construction, durability, and life-cycle economy. However, depending on the relative slenderness of their components these decks may be quite susceptible to traffic-induced fatigue cracks. Therefore, fatigue problems in orthotropic steel bridge decks and predicting the remaining fatigue life of their welded details are nowadays a challenging problem for bridge engineers and researchers. The recommendations for the estimation of the remaining fatigue life of steel bridges recently prepared by the European Convention of Constructional Steelwork (ECCS) were applied to predict the remaining fatigue life of an existing orthotropic deck bridge built in 1981. This approach follows the principles and application rules in the Eurocodes. Detailed fatigue calculation and supplementary testing were performed for two details, which were estimated to be the most critical for fatigue according to preliminary evaluation. The prediction showed that the remaining fatigue life of the details is practically unlimited despite nearly 40 years of service. (C) 2019 American Society of Civil Engineers.