Prediction of extened fatigue life of strengthened bridge deck with FRPs

Abstract

Concrete bridge decks are damaged directly by traffic loads. However almost all fatigue studies on model concrete decks have been performed under a concentrated pulsating load applied at a fixed point. Therefore, a fatigue analysis under a realistically simulated moving load is needed to evaluate the performance of a concrete bridge deck more accurately. In this study, a live load model was used to formulate an approach to calculating extreme load for various time periods. The maximum load effects for time periods from day one to 75 years are derived by extrapolations and simulations. In order to predict the strengthening effect of bridge decks strengthened with one fiber sheet, fatigue tests were performed and probabilistic and reliability analyses on the fatigue of concrete deck were carried out. According to the result of the analysis, strengthened concrete decks are found to have sufficient resistance effect against increasing truck during service life of the bridge. ? 2006 Composites in Civil Engineering, CICE 2006. All rights reserved.