The functionality maintenance of infrastructures like bridges is acquiring more and more importance due to the huge economic losses related to the interruption of their regular service. In particular, fatigue represents one of the more diffused failure modes occurring in steel and composite steel-concrete bridges: in fact, about 80 to 90 % of failures in steel structures are related to fracture and fatigue. Railway bridges endure millions of stress cycles during their life and they are expected to be highly vulnerable to such phenomena. The fatigue assessment of railway bridges; both considering the design of new bridges and the assessment of existing ones, is one of the main issues in current practice. In fact, phenomena like ‘vibration induced’ and ‘distortion induced’ fatigue are still not completely covered by current design codes and represent a critical aspect for the assessment of steel bridges. The objective of the project was the development of a modern procedure for the evaluation of the structural integrity of steel railway bridges which may be affected by fatigue damage under the application of a large number of load cycles during their lifetime. To this aim, an innovative methodology for advanced fatigue assessment was developed and calibrated on six suitable case studies which were representative of typical European steel solutions for railway bridges subjected to vibration/distortion phenomena. The application of the proposed methodology to case studies confirmed its capabilities in providing reliable and extensive information concerning the current fatigue damage and the remaining life of bridge components
Fatigue damage control and assessment for railways bridges (FADLESS)
LIPPI, FRANCESCO VITTORIO;SALVATORE, WALTER;
2014-01-01
Abstract
The functionality maintenance of infrastructures like bridges is acquiring more and more importance due to the huge economic losses related to the interruption of their regular service. In particular, fatigue represents one of the more diffused failure modes occurring in steel and composite steel-concrete bridges: in fact, about 80 to 90 % of failures in steel structures are related to fracture and fatigue. Railway bridges endure millions of stress cycles during their life and they are expected to be highly vulnerable to such phenomena. The fatigue assessment of railway bridges; both considering the design of new bridges and the assessment of existing ones, is one of the main issues in current practice. In fact, phenomena like ‘vibration induced’ and ‘distortion induced’ fatigue are still not completely covered by current design codes and represent a critical aspect for the assessment of steel bridges. The objective of the project was the development of a modern procedure for the evaluation of the structural integrity of steel railway bridges which may be affected by fatigue damage under the application of a large number of load cycles during their lifetime. To this aim, an innovative methodology for advanced fatigue assessment was developed and calibrated on six suitable case studies which were representative of typical European steel solutions for railway bridges subjected to vibration/distortion phenomena. The application of the proposed methodology to case studies confirmed its capabilities in providing reliable and extensive information concerning the current fatigue damage and the remaining life of bridge componentsI documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
