Tensile Fatigue Properties of Ordinary Plain Concrete and Reinforced Concrete under Flexural Loading

Many bridge structural components are subjected to repetitive vehicle load and temperature gradient action. The resulting cyclic tensile stresses within the structures could cause premature fatigue failure of concrete, dramatically impairing structural components’ durability and sustainability. Although substantial knowledge of fatigue properties on low-strength pavement concrete and high-strength structural concrete has been obtained, research on the most widely used normal-grade ordinary concrete in bridge engineering is still ongoing. Therefore, a four-point bending fatigue test of 97 C50 concrete specimens under a constant amplitude sinusoidal wave was conducted in the laboratory, the flexural fatigue behavior of plain and reinforced concrete specimens was studied, and the cyclic deformation evolution of concrete under fatigue loading was obtained. The empirical fatigue S-N equations of concrete with a failure probability p of 0.1~0.5 were derived through statistical analysis of the test results. The fatigue life of the tested specimens exhibited a two-parameter Weibull distribution. In addition to the maximum stress level S(max), the stress ratio R is also a key factor affecting the flexural fatigue life of concrete N. The semi-logarithmic and logarithmic equations were almost identical at the tested stress levels, the latter predicting longer fatigue life for S(max) < 0.70. The restraining effect from steel reinforcement slightly lengthened the concrete’s fatigue cracking initiation life. The insight into concrete flexural fatigue properties from this study not only contributes to a better understanding of structural concrete, but also provides a basis for the practical evaluation of concrete or composite bridge decks.