In orthotropic steel deck, many fatigue crack has been found at the weld joint between deck plate and vertical stiffeners. As a counter measure for the fatigue, semi-circular notch has been adopted to reduce the stress concentration around boxing weld. However, more effective notch geometry should be considered from viewpoint of ease of construction and fatigue improvement. In this study, reduction of stress and stress intensity factor were investigated for newly developed slit-like notch and sigma-shaped notch. In addition, fatigue tests were performed for the weld joints between deck plate and vertical stiffener with sigma-shaped notch. The crack initiation life and crack propagation can be extended by constructing sigmashaped notch at the top of vertical stiffener.
