Fatigue Life of Riveted Steel Bridges

Many old riveted railway bridges are replaced too soon due to a general lack of knowledge about the expected life span. This indicates the need for more information on fatigue and brittle fracture of riveted bridges. This book unveils extensive research and literature results on riveted bridges' fatigue live and shows how to take fatigue properly into account when deciding about the future service life of a riveted railway bridge. It deals with the expected fatigue live, level of stress ranges by traffic, effect of temperature and ageing, loading histories, crack detection, loose rivets, other defects, repair and strengthening, providing proper instructions and more. Intended for structural, bridge and steel construction engineers.

Bjorn Akesson is a former lecturer at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. Currently he is a consulting engineer and the author of several books focusing on the design and analysis of steel structures, especially bridges. He also published Plate Buckling in Bridges and Other Structures, a comprehensive account of local buckling in bridges (Taylor & Francis, 2007).