Low-cycle fatigue behavior of H-shaped steel piles of an integral concrete bridge subjected to temperature variations

The main purpose of this research is to estimate the fatigue life of steel piles of an integral bridge under displacement control conditions due to temperature variations. To this end, Finite Element (FE) simulation was performed to determine the critical region which is apt to fail. In this regard, the mesh size adopted considering total strain (sum of elastic and plastic strains). After that, the fatigue life of the component was calculated in the critical element using FE results and employing the strain-life criterion. Finally, the finite element results were compared with the available experimental results. This comparison showed that there was only 6.5% difference between the simulation results and the fatigue test data. Moreover, the findings of this study revealed that during 213 cycles of loading, cracks or tears with a length of 12 mm are created in the structure. Moreover, the tear size increases three times by continuing loading up to 529 cycles. (c) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the Innovative Manufacturing, Mechatronics & Materials Forum 2020.