Masters Theses

Date of Award

5-1995

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Civil Engineering

Major Professor

David W. Goodpasture

Committee Members

Hal Deatherage, Edwin Burdette

Abstract

In January 1992, the outside girder of the east bound lane of the Holston River Bridge experienced a "full height tear through the flanges and web" due to fatigue failure (2), caused by out of plane distortion. The girder was subsequently jacked back into place and spliced.

The Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Tennessee has since been conducting a study of the fatigue life of the Holston River Bridge, funded by the Tennessee Department of Transportation. One of the primary purposes of the study was to establish stress ranges at critical details of the bridge superstructure and to predict the remaining fatigue life of the bridge using the stress range test data.

Since the remaining fatigue life of the bridge is a function of its individual structural members, each critical member was analyzed separately. The floor beams were selected primarily because of the coped flanges; a factor which would make the floor beams susceptible to fatigue cracking. It was the objective of this thesis to: 1) study the critical details on the floor beams for potential fatigue problems; 2) analyze the stress data; and 3) estimate the remaining fatigue life of the floor beams based on the current and estimated future usage. This thesis describes the data collection process, presents the information obtained, and provides an estimate of the remaining fatigue life of the bridge floor beams.

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