Retrofitting of fatigue crack in connections between stringers and floorbeams in steel railway trough truss bridges

Abstract

Much fatigue damage has been observed in connections between stringers and floorbeams in initially-welded steel railway trough girders. This paper addressed the retrofit work for the fatigue cracks. Stress measurement on the existing bridge and Fine meshed FEM analysis were conducted to clarify the cause of fatigue cracks. Based on the parameter studies on FEM, we proposed the retrofitting method called “Ship Shaped Reinforcement”. Stress measurements were also carried out after applying the reinforcement to confirm the efficiency. As a result, we found the sufficient reduction of stresses around the fatigue damaged areas.