Abstract
Fatigue design criteria are necessary to design steel corrugated web girders for highway bridges. The paper presents research on the fatigue life of steel bridge I-girders with trapezoidal web corrugations. Eight large-scale test girders were fabricated from HPS 485W steel and fatigue-tested in four-point bending. The web-to-flange fillet welds were made using semiautomatic gas metal arc welding (GMAW) or robotic GMAW. Fatigue cracks initiated in the tension flange at the web-to-flange fillet weld toe along the inclined web folds and adjacent bend regions, and propagated in the flange. The results demonstrate that steel corrugated web I-girders exhibit a fatigue life that is longer than that of conventional steel I-girders with transverse stiffeners. For design of corrugated web I-girders, the Category B′ design curve of the AASHTO LRFD specifications is recommended for finite life fatigue design calculations, and a value of 96.5 MPa (14.0 ksi) is recommended for the constant amplitude fatigue limit.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 012607QST |
| Pages (from-to) | 1070-1078 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Journal of Structural Engineering |
| Volume | 132 |
| Issue number | 7 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2006 Jul 1 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Bridges, highway
- Corrugating
- Fatigue
- Girders
- Webs
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Civil and Structural Engineering
- Building and Construction
- Materials Science(all)
- Mechanics of Materials
- Mechanical Engineering