Crack Water Interaction and Fatigue Life Assessment of RC Bridge Decks

A rate-dependent model of structural concrete incorporating kinematics of ambient condensed water is presented. The constitutive laws of solid concrete skeletons and the pore water inside cracks are consistently coupled, and the anisotropy of both solid stiffness of cracked solid and crack-orientation dependent permeability of water are taken into account with full compatibility. The nonlinear finite element analysis of RC slabs is conducted under various ambient moisture states and high-cycle fatigue loads of different rates. The analytical results indicate that a high loading rate shortens the fatigue life of saturated concrete bridge slabs.