Parametric design of steel orthotropic bridge decks for fatigue calculations

Abstract

Currently the transport & planning (transport & logistics) group from Royal HaskoningDHV makes their pre-design for steel orthotropic bridge decks by using rules of thumb and experience. In the final design-stage this is verified whereby the force distribution is checked with the help of 3D finite element software (FEM). In this stage only small design changes can be made and therefore the design cannot be optimized to its full extend. The final design is highly dependent on experienced engineers and the rules of thumb. Since the rules of thumb are safe estimates this might result in an overdesigned design with more material than necessary, making it economically and ecologically unattractive. Furthermore, the fatigue calculation, which is always done in the final design stage, is very extensive and makes doing the calculations very expensive and labour intensive