Analytical and experimental studies on optimal details of orthotropic steel decks for long span bridges

Orthotropic steel decks gradually come into general use in long span bridges due to various advantages such as dead weight reduction, easy quality control, and so on. On the other hand, stress concentration is often observed near the connection details, which may lead to fatigue problems and govern the design of the structure. Therefore, researches to understand the structural behaviors and examine stress distribution of details in orthotropic steel decks are required in order to develop an optimal connection detail. In this paper, optimal parameters regarding height, thickness and shear area of a cross-beam and efficiency and shapes of bulkhead plates are characterized by analytical studies and verified by experiments, so that fatigue cracks could be prevented.