Assessment of reliable fatigue life of orthotropic steel deck

The fatigue life assessment of orthotropic steel decks of highway bridges still hasn’t been sufficiently investigated. The inspection results of orthotropic steel decks have shown that their working life can be shorter than other members of steel highway bridges due to fatigue. This means that particular details of orthotropic decks can be critical regarding the service life of a bridge. The fatigue life of typical details of orthotropic steel decks for the real load models in Croatia and for the standardized load model of highway bridges in Eurocode has been analysed. The reliability indices have also been calculated for these details and they have been used to determine reliable fatigue life. The paper proposed the introduction of the reliable fatigue life concept which is not explicitly specified in the modern standards for structures. This concept has been offered as well as the guidelines for further probabilistic research on reliable fatigue life.