Fatigue Damage Evaluation of Railway Truss Bridges from Field Strain Measurement

Abstract

This paper is concerned with fatigue damage evaluation of railway truss bridges in Thailand, which have been in service for more than 60 years by using the deterministic approach. The dynamic strain measuring system was installed on selected bridge members to record the actual strain histories induced by the passing trains. The fatigue damages of all bridge members are evaluated based on Palmgren-Miner damage rule and the S-N curves of the stress ranges from field strain measurement of daily train traffic. For the members that their field strains were directly not monitored, the finite element analysis has been employed to estimate their stress ranges. The finite element models of the bridges are verified with the stress data obtained from the field load test of a locomotive. It is found that the vertical and diagonal members of the railway bridges appear to have the most fatigue damage risk whereas the lower chord and floor beams have the lowest estimated fatigue damage potential.

Keywords

fatigue damage evaluation fatigue test field measurement finite element analysis steel bridges

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