A finite element analysis of a fatigue failure on the I-40 bridge over the Holston River in Knoxville, Tennessee

This research investigates a fatigue failure of a connection detail on the I- 40 bridge over the Holston River in Knoxville, Tennessee. This failure originated in the web gap of the horizontal lateral gusset plate and the transverse stiffener and resulted in a crack that propagated vertically through the bottom flange and nearly the full height of the web. This study is a computer aided finite element analysis of the stresses in the gusset plate to web connection details at the cracked section before the failure and after the retrofit.

The results of these models demonstrate that retrofit of the connection detail lowered the stresses in the web gap by over 50%. It was also determined that the high stresses that caused the failure in the web gap resulted from the application of out-of-plane loads at the connection. The retrofit was found to lower the web gap stresses by distributing the out-of-plane loads over a larger area of the web.