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Taking the orthotropic steel bridge deck of one cable-stayed bridge as a research object, a method is proposed to calculate the life-cycle fatigue damage in the welded joints under the combined actions of vehicle loads and temperature. Therefore, it is necessary to propose a calculation method for fatigue evaluation considering the combined actions of traffic load and seasonal temperature. In addition, an investigation showed that the fatigue life is considerably shortened by the effect of asphalt pavement temperature. An analysis of monitoring data from the Runyang Bridge revealed that temperature has a linear effect on fatigue damage. In recent years, some research results showed that the fatigue life of steel deck was significantly correlated with seasonal temperatures. An energy-based critical plane approach was developed to estimate fatigue life using the stochastic high-cycle nature of fatigue cracks. In order to consider the welded residual, a modified Manson–Coffin equation was proposed to predict the fatigue life in low-cycle fatigue problems. However, the welded residual stresses are not taken into consideration in these methods. studied the fatigue resistance of an orthotropic steel deck using nominal stress method and found that the average strain in the steel deck had little effect on fatigue stress spectra. Many methods have been proposed for evaluation of fatigue resistance, such as nominal stress method, hot spot stress method, and notch stress method. Traffic load and welded residual stress are two key causes of fatigue cracks of orthotropic steel decks. In China, serious fatigue cracks also exist in orthotropic steel decks, such as the Guangzhou Humen Bridge, Jiangyin Yangtze River Bridge, and Xiamen Bridge. The first observed case of fatigue cracking was the Severn Bridge in 1971 subsequently, fatigue cracks were also detected in the orthotropic steel decks in Japan, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, etc.
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Once fatigue cracking occurs, it will greatly endanger bridge performance. However, the service life of orthotropic steel deck has been limited due to fatigue cracks at welded joints. The orthotropic steel deck has been widely used in bridge construction for the reason of effective load-carrying capacity, light weight, speedy construction, etc. The results can provide meaningful references for bridge engineers to carry out fatigue analysis on orthotropic steel bridge decks. The results show that temperature has a significant effect on fatigue damage, and the cumulative fatigue damage in the rib-to-rib welded joint is significantly greater than that in the deck-to-rib welded joint. Finally, a method of calculating the life-cycle fatigue damage of welded joints under the combined actions of vehicle loads and temperature is proposed. Second, a simulation method of fatigue stress caused by random vehicle loads is proposed. First, a finite element model of steel bridge deck with asphalt pavement is built to analyze the influence of pavement temperature on the fatigue stress of steel bridge deck. To be specific, taking the steel bridge deck of one cable-stayed bridge as a research object, this study proposes a method of calculating life-cycle fatigue damage of orthotropic steel deck under the combined actions of vehicle loads and pavement temperature. This study provides one method for fatigue analysis under the combined actions of vehicle loads and pavement temperature. The fatigue analysis on orthotropic steel bridge decks is a hot topic in bridge engineering field.