Reliability-Based Method for Fatigue Evaluation of Railway Bridges

Abstract

A newly developed method for the fatigue evaluation of riveted railway bridges is presented in the paper. The data that were collected during a large-scale bridge instrumentation program along with the fatigue resistance test database compiled at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, were used extensively during the formulation of the method, or fatigue model. The fatigue model is based on reliability theory due to the high degree of scatter in all fatigue strength tests and the uncertainty associated with estimating fatigue loadings. Fatigue strengths and loadings are both described by probability distributions. The probability of failure is calculated using these two sets of distributions and a performance function that is a modified form of Miner's damage law. Several parametric studies were conducted using the new fatigue evaluation method. The studies give a broad view of the potential remaining lives of shorter-span railway bridges subjected to unit train loadings.