Thick sandwich panel fabrication for bridge deck structure and its joint strength

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the static strength of thick plate laser welded lap joint and the performance of thick sandwich panel for bridge deck structure. The strength of thin sheet laser welded lap joint whose thickness is less than 1.6 mm have been already reported, but the strength of thick plate laser welded lap joint whose thickness is more than 10 mm is not known. The authors believe this thick laser welded lap jont enable heavy industries to make a revolution on applying it for sandwich panel fabrication. Then, they have conducted mechanical tests of 10 mm + 6 mm thick laser welded lap joints to grasp their static strength. According to the obtained data, they fabricate a thick sandwich panel model of newly designed bridge deck structure for evaluation. The static lading test, cyclic loading test and collapsing test show that the thick sandwich panel has enough performance for the practical application.