Abstract
There is strong concern in which aged bridge steel decks are severely damaged by traffic loading fatigue. Hence economically effective retrofit process for this damaged steel deck has been heavily required in society. To satisfy this requirement, the authors suggest a new retrofit method, in which a pseudo-stain hardening fiber reinforced cement composite, ECC, is effectively utilized as strengthening top layer on steel decks. Shear load applied at interface between ECC and deck plates is designed to sustain with FRP plate shear connectors. This study aimed at demonstrating performance of composite structure retrofitted by the suggested method. For this purpose, shear loading experiments of the shear connectors and full scale fatigue experiments were conducted. These experimental results justified proposed design process in this retrofit method. Furthermore, these results were successfully reproduced with three dimension non-linear FEM analysis. Finally propriety of the design process was confirmed via field loading test of retrofitted bridge.
