ROLLING LOAD FATIGUE PERFORMANCE OF FULL-SCALE CONCRETE BRIDGE DECK REINFORCED WITH GFRP BARS

Recently Queen’s University, Canada, completed the first ever full-scale rolling load fatigue test on a large scale bridge deck reinforced by glass fibre-reinforced polymer (GFRP) rebar. One part of the deck was a control section subjected to fixed points pulsating fatigue loading while the other was under rolling load fatigue. Both sections went through 3 million load cycles, and monotonic loading tests were conducted periodically to establish the stiffness. Rolling load has been proven to induce substantially more fatigue damage than pulsating load. This study aims to understand the differences in fatigue mechanism, crack propagation, and stiffness degradation behaviour between GFRP reinforced bridge decks under pulsating and rolling loads.