Experimental study on fatigue failure of rib-to-deck welded connections in orthotropic steel bridge decks

The rib-to-deck (RD) welded connections are the most sensitive locations to encounter the fatigue failure in orthotropic steel decks (OSDs), and numbers of fatigue cracks arising from these areas have been found in existing OSD bridges. This research focus on the fatigue cracking process, fatigue characteristics as well as failure mechanics of RD connections under cyclic loading. Six full-scale RD welded joints were fabricated, and two load cases of centric and eccentric loading were considered. Static loading was first conducted with aims of measuring elastic strain distributions at potential hot spots. Structural hot spot stresses at weld toes as well as stress concentration factors (SCFs) were linearly extrapolated by using the recorded strains, based on which critical locations were identified. High-cycle repeated loading was subsequently implemented, from which the fatigue crack initiation and propagation process, fatigue failure mode, characteristic fatigue life, as well as degradation of vertical rigidity, were obtained. Four stages of crack propagation were mainly observed, and the remaining fatigue lives after the crack reached the deck edge were short to be neglected. Variations of crack dimensions including the longitudinal length and the depth in the plate thickness were also revealed. Comparison between experimental numbers of cycles and standard S-N formulae indicates that the FAT 100 curve provided in the IIW fatigue recommendation could be conservatively used to estimate the fatigue resistance of such rib-to-deck welded connections composed of 16 mm thick deck plates and 80% PJP welds.