• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.28 no.1A
• /
• pp.1-13
• /
• 2008

The web of a horizontally curved plate girder bridge is, in general, subject to not only longitudinal flexural in-plane stress but also out-of-plane bending stress. Therefore, the induced stresses in the fillet welded joints at the intersection of the web and flange plates in the curved plate girder bridge can be considerably high, and the welded joints of gusset plates connecting the main girder to the floor beams or sway bracings can be subject to much more severe situation than those in the ordinary straight plate girder bridge. In order to investigate the cause of fatigue crack occurred in a curved girder bridge that has been served in about 23 years, in this study, field load tests have been performed to obtain the stress characteristics at the welded joint under the real traffic flow. Using the test results, we have investigated the causes of the occurrence of various fatigue cracks and have estimated the fatigue lives for the cracks. In addition, the characteristics of structural behavior at welded joint of the curved girder bridge have been examined by comparing the FE analysis and the field test result.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.17 no.6
• /
• pp.851-865
• /
• 2014

Full penetration welded steel moment-resisting frame (SMRF) structures with welded box sections are widely employed in steel bridges, where a large number of steel bridges have been in operation for over fifty years in Japan. Welding defects such as incomplete penetration at the beam-column connections of these existing SMRF steel bridge piers were observed during inspection. Previous experiments conducted by the authors' team indicate that gusset stiffeners (termed fillets in this study) at the beam-web-to-column-web joint of the beam-column connections may play an important role on the seismic performance of the connections. This paper aims to experimentally study the effect of the fillet radius on seismic performance of the connections with large welding defects. Four specimens with different sizes of fillet radii were loaded under quasi-static incremental cyclic loading, where different load-displacement relations and cracking behaviors were observed. The experimental results show that, as the size of the fillet radius increases, the seismic performance of the connections can be greatly improved.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
• /
• v.24 no.1
• /
• pp.35-46
• /
• 2012

With the increase in the demand for high-rise buildings, the use of high-strength steel has likewise increased. Thus, it has become more necessary to study the resistance force of the high-strength hollow structural section (HSS) joint of 600MPa. Additionally, the current design equation in Korea limits maximum yield stress at 360MPa in the case of HSS. In other words, since the current specification does not apply to HSS of 600MPa, this study aims to investigate the applicability of design equations as well as examine the behavior of the connection through the experiment and finite element analysis (FEA) of the plate-tube connection of 600MPa. In particular, this paper presents the behavior of joints with the gusset plates welded in the longitudinal direction of the circular hollow section (CHS) when the joints are subjected to lateral force. Comparing design equations with the results of FEA and the test, existing design equations are underestimated to be 56~79% in the case of high-strength materials.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
• /
• v.28 no.7
• /
• pp.977-985
• /
• 2004

An evaluation of fatigue life of welded components is complicated due to various geometrically complex welding details and stress raisers in vicinity of weld beads, ego under cuts, overlaps and blow holes. These factors have a considerable influence on the fatigue strength of welded joints, as well as the welding residual stress which is relaxed depending on the distribution of local stress at the front of the stress raisers. To reasonably evaluate fatigue life, the effect of geometries and welding residual stress should be taken into account. The several methods based on the notch strain approach have been proposed in order to accomplish this. These methods, however, result in differences between analytical and experimental results due to discrepancies in estimated amount of relaxed welding residual stress present. In this paper, an approach that involves the use of a modified notch strain approach considering geometrical effects and a residual stress relaxation model based on experimental results was proposed. The fatigue life for five types of representative welding details, ego cruciform, cover plate, longitudinal stiffener, gusset and side attachment joint, are evaluated using this method.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
• /
• v.19 no.3
• /
• pp.303-312
• /
• 2007

Steel box girder bridges are being commonly designed for medium-span bridges of span length. Composite truss bridges with steel diagonals instead of concrete webs can be an excellent design alternative, because it can reduce the dead weight of superstructures. One of the key issues in the design of composite truss bridges is the joint structureconnecting the diagonal steel members with the upper and lower concrete slabs. Because the connection has to carry concentrated combined loads and the design provisions for the joint are not clear, it is necessary to investigate the load transfer mechanism and the design methods for each limit state. There are various connection details according to the types of diagonal members. In this paper, the joint structure with group stud connectors welded on a gusset plate is used. Push-out tests for the group stud connectors of were performed. The test results showed that the current design codes on the ultimate strength ofthe stud connection can be used when the required minimum spacing of stud connectors is satisfied. Flexure-shear tests were conducted to verify the applicability of the design provisions for combined load effects to the strength of joint structures. To increase the pullout strength of the connection, bent studs were proposed and utilized for the edge studs in the group arrangement of the joint. The results showed that the details of the joint structure were enhanced. Thereafter, design guidelines were proposed.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
• /
• v.15 no.2
• /
• pp.179-188
• /
• 2011

Steel structures have been allowed to have fatigue damage tolerance in fact. If it would be assessed whether fatigue crack is growing or not and How fast fatigue crack is propagating, we should make a rational decision on methods and a period of reinforcement in the maintenance. In this study, fatigue crack growth tests on two kinds of through-thickness cracked steel plates and a out-of-plane gusset welded joint were conducted to evaluate fatigue crack growth rate using the COD(Crack Opening Displacement), and COD measurement using strain gauges was examined to offer a practical method. As a result, we proposed a reasonable assessing method for fatigue crack growth rate using the COD and it was experimentally proved practical to estimate the COD through measuring strains.