Fatigue reliability model for railway riveted steel bridges

A fatigue reliability model is described for safety evaluation of steel railway bridges that are located on a proposed route for transportation of hazardous materials in the state of Nevada. The safety margin for fatigue is defined as the difference between the life at which the fatigue failure occurs (a random variable) and a specified fatigue life (a deterministic value). The member is said to have failed when the safety margin is less than zero. The fatigue life is a function of four independent random variables. These are the uncertainties in the member geometry, load magnitude, impact factor, and estimation of the experimental fatigue strength curve.; The available full-scale experimental data on fatigue strength of riveted connections were used as input to a computer simulation program along with statistics on the remaining random variables. A sensitivity study was performed on the fatigue reliability model.; A complete structural analysis, counting cycles, and reliability analysis computer program was written for plate girder bridges.