Remaining Fatigue Life Assessment of a Steel Railway Bridge Based on Fracture and Stress Life Approach

Abstract

The railway bridge over the Bhakra River is an open web riveted steel girder bridge between the Bareilly–Rampur section that belongs to the Moradabad division of India’s Northern Railway. Simulation-based fatigue life assessment of this railway bridge was carried out for full-scale train loading given by the Research Design and Standards Organization (RDSO). STAAD.Pro CONNECT Edition software was used to analyze the bridge, identify critical members, and calculate residual life for 25T-2008 loading at various speeds with stress bands of 5 and 10 MPa for a stress life–based approach. MATLAB software was used to find the number of repetitions corresponding to the stress history diagram. A linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM)–based approach was also applied to assess the remaining life of the bridge. Analysis showed that a smaller stress band should be used for precise bridge life. This study will be useful in the conditional health assessment of steel railway bridges using an S-N curve based approach as well as a fracture-based approach.