Abstract
With the adoption of welded joints rather than bolted joints, we investigate the fatigue strength and the fatigue crack initiation of U-type trough rib and welded specimen with misalignment in a steel deck plate. The stress concentration factor of welded specimens with a misalignment is also verified by a finite element method. The main conclusions obtained from this study are as follows Experimental results of full-scaled U-type trough rib models have indicated that fatigue life depends on misalignments of welded joints in steel deck plate ; The more misalignments are, the less the fatigue life is. It has also shown that fatigue crack propagates from the welded root to the bead surface. We have also obtained the same results from both the fatigue test of welded specimens with a misalignment and the stress analysis of a finite element method.