Partial-interaction fatigue assessment of stud shear connectors in composite bridge beams

There is a growing demand to assess the remaining strength and endurance of existing composite steel and concrete bridge beams due to the aging infrastructure, increases in permissible vehicle weights and increases in their frequencies. As codes are generally dedicated to the design of new structures, new procedures are required to aid in the assessment of existing bridges to ensure that they are utilised to the full. In this paper, simple expressions are presented to perform partial-interaction analyses directly from full-interaction analyses, so that the beneficial effect of partial-interaction on the shear forces on the shear connectors can be utilised in assessment to extend the fatigue life of simply supported bridge beams and to determine the effect of remedial work if necessary. Use of the assessment technique is described by way of an illustrative example.