• Rabiega, J.
• Krolicka, A.
• Correia, J.
• Lesiuk, G.
• Duda, M.
• Katkowski, M.
• De Jesus, Amp

Abstract

The maintenance of the old steel structures is one of the main challenges in engineering practice mainly due to the lack of the experimental data performed for existing old steel structures erected at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. In this paper the fatigue crack growth behavior in structural components from the old 19th (and early 20th) centuries structures (e.g. bridges) has been investigated. The delivered material for investigation was extracted from a beam made from puddled iron and mild rimmed steel, commonly used 100 years ago. It has been confirmed in author's experimental works, that the fatigue crack growth rate in this ancient type of steel is higher than in its modern equivalent. One of the fundamental engineering task is the problem of the extension of the pre-critical fatigue crack growth in such a type of steel. One of the promising approach is hybrid approach (experimental-numerical) based on the additional energy dissipation mechanisms in fatigue crack growth process. One of the successful strengthening method is the CFRP (Composite Fiber Reinforced Polymer) patching along the fatigue crack paths. The presented approach has been studied and discussed in this paper on the background of the numerical and experimental data. As it was expected, the proposed strengthening method is efficient and promising in case of the "immediate" repairs of critical members with cracks (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Topics

• impedance spectroscopy
• polymer
• crack
• steel
• fatigue
• composite
• iron