ABSTRACT
A simple supported steel plate girder bridge based on an actual highway bridge design is used to investigate the fatigue response due to out-of-plane distortion. Finite element software is used to build finite element model of steel plate girder bridges and local sub-model of the web gap. Finite element models of bridges are built with different horizontal curve radius, and different web gap size. Two different lane loads are considered to analyze distortion-induced fatigue response at the web gaps of steel girder bridges. Results show that there are significant fatigue stresses at the web gap of steel plate girder bridges under vehicle loads, and stresses are normally distributed along the stiffener, with the greatest stress at the weld toe. The fatigue stress of the web gap decreases with the increase of the web gap size and horizontal curve radius.
