Fatigue Performance of a Lightweight Composite Bridge Deck with Open Ribs

Abstract

An innovative lightweight composite deck (LWCD) is proposed for steel bridges to avoid premature fatigue cracking. The composite deck is composed of an open-ribbed orthotropic steel deck (OSD) and a thin ultrahigh-performance concrete (UHPC) layer. This study is based on a suspension steel bridge in China, namely, the Second Dongting Lake Bridge. The following investigations were performed: (1) preliminary finite-element analysis (FEA) was carried out to evaluate the vehicle-induced stress ranges (i.e., Δσ = σ