Steel bridge of The Metropolitan Expressway, Japan.
Unknown.
Fluctuating loads due to highway live load.
Fatigue cracks were detected on welded joints between longitudinal trough ribs and orthotropic deck plates.
Cause of fatigue cracks was as follows:
- Localized stress concentration which resulted from the out-of-plane of the deck plate deflection due to the wheel load.
Emergency repair
Stop hole and scallop were drilled at the crack tips(Fig.1).
Fig.1 Crack location and emergency repair
Permanent repair
The new ribs with plates installed by high-tension bolts after removing the damaged trough ribs(Fig.2).
Saito et al,The effectiveness of the repair of replacing the trough rib and the verification of the stress properties,Prc.of Annual Conferenece of JSCE,vol.63,2008.(In Japanese)