Fatigue Life of Girders with Trapezoidal Corrugated Webs

Authors :: Richard Sause
John W. Fisher
Hassan H. Abbas
Kengo Anami
Robert G. Driver
Source :: Journal of Structural Engineering. 132:1070-1078
Publication Year :: 2006
Publisher :: American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), 2006.
Abstract: Fatigue design criteria are necessary to design steel corrugated web girders for highway bridges. The paper presents research on the fatigue life of steel bridge I-girders with trapezoidal web corrugations. Eight large-scale test girders were fabricated from HPS 485W steel and fatigue-tested in four-point bending. The web-to-flange fillet welds were made using semiautomatic gas metal arc welding (GMAW) or robotic GMAW. Fatigue cracks initiated in the tension flange at the web-to-flange fillet weld toe along the inclined web folds and adjacent bend regions, and propagated in the flange. The results demonstrate that steel corrugated web I-girders exhibit a fatigue life that is longer than that of conventional steel I-girders with transverse stiffeners. For design of corrugated web I-girders, the Category B′ design curve of the AASHTO LRFD specifications is recommended for finite life fatigue design calculations, and a value of 96.5 MPa (14.0 ksi) is recommended for the constant amplitude fatigue limit.