Fatigue behaviour of cracked concrete decks under cyclic shear loading

Abstract

In large steel-concrete composite road bridges cracking occurs in the concrete deck due to tension resulting from negative bending moments at the support area. Simultaneously, high wheel loads from the traffic act as cyclic shear loading on the concrete. As a result, tension forces coming from the global load-carrying effect need to be superimposed with local vertical forces due to the wheel loads acting as cyclic shear loading. In this paper, the results of experimental investigations regarding the fatigue strength of the cracked concrete deck in tension are discussed. Furthermore, the effect of the longitudinal reinforcement ratio and the height of the tensile stress is pointed out.