Print Email Facebook Twitter Fatigue behaviour of toe and root stiffener cracks in stiffener-to-deck plate weld of orthotropic bridge decks Title Fatigue behaviour of toe and root stiffener cracks in stiffener-to-deck plate weld of orthotropic bridge decks Author Wu, W. (TU Delft Steel & Composite Structures) Veljkovic, M. (TU Delft Steel & Composite Structures) Kolstein, M.H. (TU Delft Steel & Composite Structures) Maljaars, Johan (Eindhoven University of Technology; TNO) Pijpers, Richard (TNO) Date 2024 Abstract Fatigue cracks in the stiffener-to-deck plate connections of orthotropic bridge decks, initiating from the weld toe or root and propagating into the stiffener or weld throat, are experimentally and numerically studied. A statistical analysis of the structural stress is carried out using the experimental data. Automatic welded specimens show a significantly higher fatigue resistance than manual welded ones for both details of the study. Including results in the literature, the characteristic fatigue resistances appear larger than the values in current standards and range between 100 and 160 MPa. A proposal for the fatigue resistance values is given for design purposes. The effective notch stress, averaged strain energy density factor, and fracture mechanics methods are employed to study the sensitivity of the weld toe and root cracks for different (geometrical) variations, such as the lack of weld penetration. Among them, the fracture mechanics method agrees best with the experimental data. With the increase of weld penetration ratios from 75% to 100%, the fracture mechanics predicted fatigue resistances remain approximately equal for the weld toe cracks and increase for the weld root cracks. Subject Fatigue resistanceLocal assessment methodsOrthotropic bridge deckStructural stressToe and root stiffener cracks To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:be561a4b-a184-42ca-a5e1-ff96f5b510bc DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2024.117740 ISSN 0141-0296 Source Engineering Structures, 305 Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type journal article Rights © 2024 W. Wu, M. Veljkovic, M.H. Kolstein, Johan Maljaars, Richard Pijpers Files PDF 1-s2.0-S014102962400302X-main.pdf 4.93 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:be561a4b-a184-42ca-a5e1-ff96f5b510bc/datastream/OBJ/view