Structural behavior of strengthened bridge deck specimens under fatigue loading

The deterioration of concrete bridge decks that have been directly damaged by traffic loads affects their durability, safety, and function. It is therefore necessary to strengthen the damaged concrete structures. Even though there have been many experiments performed to investigate the static behavior of strengthened structures, few experiments or analyses have considered their fatigue behavior.In this study, fatigue tests were conducted on bridge decks strengthened using various fiber-reinforced polymer plastics, such as carbon fiber sheet, glass fiber sheet, and grid-type carbon fiber reinforced plastic. All of the strengthened specimens were shown to have an improved resistance to crack propagation and better stress distributions. The Weibull distribution was adopted to analyze the fatigue life of the decks. The fatigue life limits of the strengthened bridge decks were determined at higher stress levels, and the grid-type carbon reinforced plastic specimens proved to be the most effective.