ABSTRACT
A typical repair method for fatigue cracks in steel bridge members is the splice plate method. The crack tip is drilled out and splice plates are added over the crack. For evaluating the remaining fatigue life of the repaired members, the stress at a drilled crack-arrest hole after the addition of the splice plates with high-strength bolts is required. In this study, the effect of the geometric parameters of the splice plate on stress reduction at a drilled crack-arrest hole is investigated using static loading tests and parametric finite element analyses. Based on the results, a method for predicting the stress at the drilled hole that considers the load-carrying mechanism through the bolted splice plate is proposed. It is demonstrated that the proposed method can predict stress with an error of within 10%.
