Structural behavior of strengthened bridge deck specimens under fatigue loading

Abstract

The deterioration o fconcrete bridge decks that have been directly damaged by traffic loads affects their durability, sa fety, andfunction. It is therefore necessary to strengthen the damaged concrete structures. Even though there have been many experimentsperformed to investigate the static behavior of strengthened structures, few experiments or analyses have considered their fatiguebehavior.In this study, fatigue tests were conducted on bridge decks strengthened using various fiber-reinforced polymer plastics, such ascarbon fiber sheet, glass fiber sheet, and grid-type carbon fiber reinforced plastic. All of the strengthened specimens were shownto have an improved resistance to crack propagation and better stress distributions. The Weibull distribution was adopted to ana-lyze the fatigue life of the decks. The fatigue life limits of the strengthened bridge decks were determined at higher stress levels,and the grid-type carbon reinforced plastic specimens proved to be the most effective.#2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.