ABSTRACT
SUMMARY Adhesively bonding a cover plate to the tension flange of a steel girder and high-strength bolting the ends to prevent debonding has been shown experimentally to increase the fatigue life by a factor of 20 over that of welded cover plates, from Category E to Category B. The number of end bolts should be that needed to develop the cover plate's portion of the maximum moment at the theoretical cut-off point. Parametric analyses of two-span-continuous, multigirder bridges have shown that improvements in cover plate design, which raise the fatigue strength to that of Category B, make them virtually fatigue-proof for highway truck loading.
