Fatigue Evaluation of a Railway Steel Bridge Based on In-site Test Data

The existing railway steel bridges are often required to carry an increasing volume of traffic, higher seep and heavier trains, so China bridge owners pay more attention to the actual fatigue life and service safety of such structures. Recently twenty three long fatigue cracks were found at the low flange connection plates between end cross-frames and main girders for each span of Wei River Bridge, a railway bolted and welded steel plate girder bridge. In current paper the fatigue damage initiation and propagation in connection plates are simulated by finite element models, and the fatigue and fracture safety of Wei River Bridge is evaluated based on field test data. According to the evaluation results, the retrofitting and strengthening strategy is recommended.