Parametric study and fatigue-life-cycle design of shear studs in composite bridges

Headed studs are widely used in steel–concrete composite bridges to resist longitudinal shear forces at the interface of steel girder and concrete slab. These studs are subjected to high-cycle fatigue loading due to the growth of traffic and increase in train speed. Within the frame of this paper, the dynamic structural behavior of the shear studs during train passages is studied. Different fatigue endurance models are employed for fatigue life estimation. A parametric study is performed to investigate the effects of different parameters that influence the fatigue life of shear studs. Finally a fatigue-life-cycle design procedure based on the train–bridge interaction analysis and the fatigue endurance model is proposed.