One of the typical fatigue cracks is observed the lower flange on the bearing of railway rivet girder constructed until 1960’s in many. The fatigue crack is caused by the deterioration, such as the gap on the bearing and the local wear at the bottom of end stiffener due to aging. This paper reports the results of load test and FEM analysis conducted for investigating the effects of the support condition of those on the fatigue crack generation and propagation. As a result, we confirmed the relation between the deterioration state of the bearing and the stress increase at the lower flange, and the tendency of the fatigue crack growth rate and direction.
