Fatigue life assessment of a steel bridge based on measured corrosion wastage and actual traffic loading
Master thesis
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https://hdl.handle.net/11250/3024568Utgivelsesdato
2022Metadata
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Sammendrag
Most steel bridge failures and collapses demonstrate that environmental influences substantiallyimpact the structural integrity of steel bridges. Fatigue and corrosion have been recognized asthe primary aging processes for steel bridges, especially in marine environments. Acknowledgedgaps in research due to the absence of detailed guidelines for evaluating structural integrityin relation to fatigue and corrosion are problematic. Additionally, the absence of general S-Ncurves for structures of steel prone to corrosive environments, alongside the lack of research onboth fatigue and corrosion increasing the vulnerability and failure of steel classes used in bridges,makes the estimation of the fatigue life of steel bridges uncertain. Estimating the remainingservice life accurately is crucial to using the available infrastructure efficiently.This thesis determines a more accurate fatigue life for steel road bridges based on measuredcorrosion wastage and actual traffic loads. Corrosion fatigue, one of the main factors in reducingthe fatigue life of a steel bridge, is explored at the same time. A conventional approach (Miner’srule) and two current proposed methods are used alongside different scenarios of actual trafficloads to calculate the fatigue life of a specific steel bridge (Storåna I bridge in Norway). Adatabase gathered from the bridge’s visual and technical inspections is used while estimating thefatigue life of the bridge. Moreover, a comparison and discussion of results assembled from theconventional method and the two current proposed methods used alongside different scenariosof actual traffic loads are illustrated within the thesis.