An approach for fatigue life assessment of a road bridge based on measured corrosion and actual traffic loading

Abstract

Abstract Fatigue and corrosion play a significant role in the aging of steel bridges, especially in a marine environment. An absence of fatigue strength curves for details which are exposed to corrosive environments, realistic traffic load models and accurate damage accumulation models increase the susceptibility of fatigue damage of steel bridges. In this paper, remaining fatigue life of a road bridge is assessed based on the measured corrosion wastage and more realis-tic traffic loads. Corrosion fatigue is also studied as it is one of the main factors that reduce the fatigue life and recently proposed fatigue strength curve for structural details exposed to corrosive environments is utilized for this study. A non-linear fatigue damage accumulation model is used for life assessment apart to the conventional damage model, Miner’s rule. The calculated fatigue lives are compared and discussed in quantitative manner to identify the most conservative remaining life and corresponding methods.