The present paper considers the application of fracture mechanics to develop an analytical tool for predicting fatigue responses of RC bridge slabs. The bridging stress degradation of concrete cracks under fatigue loading is considered as a primary mechanism for the…
The present paper considers the application of fracture mechanics to develop an analytical tool for predicting fatigue responses of RC bridge slabs. The bridging stress degradation of concrete cracks under fatigue loading is considered as a primary mechanism for the propagations of cracks that induce the slab failure. 3D FEM analysis of slabs under a fatigue moving load is proposed in order to reproduce the failure mechanism of slabs under traffic load and to predict fatigue responses. Concrete cracks are allowed to initiate in three directions in smeared crack elements according to the principal stress cracking criteria. The hysteresis bridging stress relation with the cyclic-dependent degradation is assigned for each crack alignment. The analysis of underlay and overlay repaired RC slabs are analyzed with normal concrete and Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECC). The comparison between fatigue life and midspan deflection characteristics are investigated among several repair cases.