Life Extension of Fatigue-Damaged Highway, Rail, and Transit Bridges: Identifying Actual Crack Tip

This project has two objectives: (1) to investigate the potential for a fatigue crack to initiate from the stress concentration from a crack-arrest hole combined with the stress concentration from the fillet weld toe, and provide recommendations to prevent such crack initiation; and (2) to assess the reliability of non-destructive evaluation (NDE) methods to identify the location of the crack tip, for a fatigue crack at a fillet weld toe, and provide recommendations on appropriate NDE methods for this application. For the situation shown above, a fatigue crack growing vertically at a fillet weld toe, is common, and crack-arrest holes are a common repair method. Therefore, the project addresses a significant problem of practical value, with the potential to help State DoTs and other bridge owners to reliably repair fatigue cracks. The potential impacts of more reliable fatigue crack repair are reductions in cases where a previously repaired bridge is fully or partially closed as additional expensive emergency repairs are made. This project fits within both the Application of Innovative Materials and Technologies thrust and the Condition Assessment and Health Monitoring thrust of CIAMTIS.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $Lehigh Federal $ 162,650, Lehigh Match $ 162,650
• Contract Numbers:

  69A3551847103

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Managing Organizations:

  Center for Integrated Asset Management for Multimodal Transportation Infrastructure Systems (CIAMTIS)

  Pennsylvania State University
  University Park, PA  United States  16802
• Project Managers:

  Donnell, Eric

• Performing Organizations:

  Lehigh University

  ATLSS Engineering Research Center
  IMBT Laboratory
  Bethlehem, PA  United States  18015-4729
• Principal Investigators:

  Pessiki, S

  Sause, R

  Hodgson, Ian

• Start Date: 20200803
• Expected Completion Date: 20230630
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Fatigue cracking; Nondestructive tests
• Subject Areas: Bridges and other structures; Maintenance and Preservation;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01748066
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Center for Integrated Asset Management for Multimodal Transportation Infrastructure Systems (CIAMTIS)
• Contract Numbers: 69A3551847103
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Aug 17 2020 5:05PM