Fatigue Assessment for the Failed Bridge Deck Closure Pour at Mile Marker 43 on I-81.

Details

• Creators:
  Rivera, Elias ; Abbas, Ebrahim K. ; Wright, William J ; Weyers, Richard E. ; Roberts-Wollmann, Carin L
• Corporate Creators:
  Virginia Tech Transportation Institute
• Corporate Contributors:
  Virginia. Dept. of Transportation ; United States. Federal Highway Administration
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  Bridge Decks Bridge Management Systems Fatigue (Mechanics) Pavement Maintenance Reinforced Concrete Bridges
• Publication/ Report Number:
  FHWA/VCTIR 14-R11
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  Virginia
• Corporate Publisher:
  Virginia. Dept. of Transportation
• Abstract:
  "Fatigue of reinforcing steel in concrete bridge decks has not been identified as a common failure mode. Generally, the
  
  stress range occurring in reinforcing steel is below the fatigue threshold and infinite fatigue life can be expected. Closure pour
  
  joints, however, may be vulnerable to fatigue if some specific design details are present. This research shows that fatigue was a
  
  likely contributor to the I-81 closure pour failure. It is much less likely that corrosion directly caused a strength failure but it is
  
  very likely that corrosion accelerated the onset of fatigue.
  
  The joints in the I-81 deck had vertical joint faces that did not provide any means for shear transfer across the joint. The
  
  joints were located under a wheel load path and were located away from beams or other means of deck support. This created
  
  atypical conditions where shear forces across the joint due to wheel loads were carried only by the reinforcing steel. The stress
  
  range in the reinforcing steel is greatly magnified under this scenario thereby making fatigue a possibility.
  
  New closure pour joints can easily be designed to prevent fatigue by providing structural support for both sides of the
  
  joint. Existing joints, however, need to be evaluated to determine if fatigue vulnerability exists. Lacking knowledge of the joint
  
  internal details, a simple differential deflection test can be performed to detect fatigue vulnerability. If the two sides of the joint
  
  are deflecting vertically relative to each other under wheel loads, than fatigue can be considered a possibility. No deflection
  
  indicates that fatigue is unlikely."
  
  
• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  99205
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:de6d6bb93b4ad145884a6a7eeb3fb072bac99ad8dbc068a51295c8ba088d4e1e
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/27444/dot_27444_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 3.71 MB ]