Effect of Crack Orientation on Fatigue Life of Reinforced Concrete Bridge Decks

Applied Sciences

卷:9

Koichi Maekawa¹  Eissa Fathalla²  Yasushi Tanaka³ 

[1] Department of Civil Engineering, Graduate School of Urban Innovation, Yokohama National University, 79-1 Tokiwadai, Hodogaya, Yokohama 240-8501, Japan;

[2] Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan;

[3] Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Kanazawa Institute of Technology, 7-1 Ohgigaoka, Nonoichi, Ishikawa 921-8501, Japan;

关键词: fatigue loading;    bridge decks;    pseudo-cracking method;    data assimilation;   

DOI  :  10.3390/app9081644

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

In visual inspection of bridges at sites, much attention is given to the density and width of cracks of concrete, but little attention is paid to crack orientation for the diagnosis of bridge performance. In this research, the effect of crack orientation on the remaining fatigue life of reinforced concrete (RC) bridge decks is investigated for crack patterns with a wide range of possible crack orientations. The data assimilation technology of multi-scale simulation and the pseudo-cracking method, which are widely validated for fatigue-lifetime simulation, are utilized in this study. The impact of the crack direction on fatigue life is found to be associated with the coupled flexure-shear mode of failure, and the mechanism to arrest shear cracking by preceding cracks is quantitatively estimated. This mechanism is similar to the stop-hole to prevent fatigue cracks in steel structures, and it enables us to enhance the fatigue life of RC decks. It is demonstrated that the crack orientations that approximate the longitudinal and transverse directions of RC decks are the ones that most extend remaining fatigue life. Finally, the higher risk cracking locations on the bottom surface of RC decks are discussed, presenting information of use to site inspectors.

【 授权许可】

Unknown