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
  • Fatigue (Mechanics)
  • Bridge management systems
  • 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."
  More +
• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  99205
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/27444/dot_27444_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 3.71 MB]
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:de6d6bb93b4ad145884a6a7eeb3fb072bac99ad8dbc068a51295c8ba088d4e1e