A calibrated verification model for fatigue assessment of road bridges

• The format suggested in the Eurocode for fatigue verification of road bridges is under scrutiny in thispaper. The model is easy to use in practice, which is important for design purposes, but its accuracyhas been questioned. For this reason, a reliability-based evaluation of the safety level has beenperformed and is briefly recapitulated in this paper. It shows a large scatter in reliability index rangingfrom unacceptably low to overly conservative. A calibration of the existing model has been performedshowing a more consistent reliability level. Results from comparisons of the existing and calibratedmodels are shown for real bridges considering the influence on design stress ranges. The results showthat the Eurocode model is conservative for short span bridges subjected to low traffic volume. Forother cases, the Eurocode model is non-conservative.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Samhällsbyggnadsteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Civil Engineering (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Steel bridge; Fatigue; Reliability; Eurocode; Calibration

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)