Fatigue crack initiation in riveted railway bridge connections

The objective of the investigation presented in this paper was to identify and rank in terms of damage, fatigue-critical locations on a typical riveted stringer-to-cross-girder connection used in railway bridges using the finite element method. The results were derived in the form of Miner’s damage under the passage of a typical freight train. Through this ranking and by considering different damage scenarios, including rivet defects, loss of clamping force in a rivet and loss of a rivet, it was found that the most damaging effect was caused by the presence of clearance between the rivet shank and the hole or by the loss of a rivet. The damage at the angle-fillet and the rivets connecting the angle to the stringer web was found not to be affected considerably by rivet defects. In contrast, the rivet clamping force appeared to affect fatigue damage around the angle holes and on the rivets to a considerable extent. The effect of the manner of hole preparation was not considered in this investigation