Fatigue testing of transversely prestressed concrete decks

In the Netherlands, slab-between-girder bridges with prestressed girders and transversely prestressed decks in between the girders require assessment. Static testing showed that compressive membrane action increases the capacity of these structures and that the decks fail in punching shear. The next question is if compressive membrane action also increases the capacity of these decks under repeated loads. Therefore, the same half-scale bridge structure as used for the static tests was subjected to repeated loads at different fractions of the maximum static load, different loading sequences, and for single- and double-concentrated loads. A relationship between the load level and number of cycles at failure (S-N curve) for the assessment of these bridges is proposed, but the influence of the loading sequence was not successfully quantified yet. The conclusion of the experiments is that compressive membrane action enhances the punching capacity of transversely prestressed thin decks subjected to repeated loads.