Fatigue analysis of a bridge deck using the peaks-over-threshold approach with application to the Millau viaduct

Usually, to estimate the fatigue life of structural details in existing bridges, fatigue damage assessed with monitoring data is extrapolated linearly in time. In this study, a methodology is proposed for predicting the numbers of fatigue cycles with the peaks-over-threshold approach. On the other side, this POT approach, which is based on extreme values, is, as usually, also used to predict the load effects of extreme amplitude. This provides an innovative method to predict fatigue damage, which considers the initial distribution of numbers of cycles over time. It may account for traffic growth in volume and mass. This paper shows the comparison between reliability indexes assessed with the proposed method and the linear extrapolation