Fatigue and crack propagation investigations on composite dowels using an inclined single push-out test

The current fatigue design of composite dowels is based on the structure stress concept for the steel part and upper load limitations to avoid concrete fatigue and a degradation of the composite joint. Therefore the aim of the existing concept is to avoid any fatigue of the composite structure. A fatigue concept considering residual load bearing capacity of torn steel connectors and the transfer of forces to less stressed composite dowels in the beam has great economic potential and leads to a better safety assessment. Therefore, further investigations of fatigue behaviour and crack propagation of composite dowels are necessary. In a first step a single composite dowel is investigated in small-part tests. By the use of finite element models a new inclined single push-out test stand has been developed in order to reproduce the force and stress distributions within a composite beam as precisely as possible with the small-part tests. This ensures the comparability of the crack initiation location and crack propagation. In the test series the influences of different stress ranges and cycle numbers on crack propagation of the steel dowel are investigated. Furthermore the residual load-bearing capacity is determined and compared to static load-bearing behaviour of uncracked steel parts of composite dowels. This paper concentrates on the numerical evaluation of crack propagation and residual capacity.