Experimental and analytical study on the evaluation of ductile crack initiation in steel bridge piers

Abstract

The paper presents experimental and analytical results of thick-walled steel columns subjected to cyclic loading and aims at developing a ductile failure evaluation method for the ductile crack initiation in the steel bridge pier. To this end, cyclic tests of nine steel columns were carried out to clarify the influences of material, section shape and loading histories on the ductile crack initiation. Moreover, by performing analysis using the shell element, strain behavior was clarified and damage indexes based on Miner law were established. It is found that compared with the experimental results, the presented method is of good accuracy in the evaluation of the ductile crack initiation.