• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.176-183
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• 2010

In the steel deck box girder bridges, the deck is composed of deck plate, longitudinal and lateral direction ribs. The bridge, that is considered in this study, has been used for about 40 years and, recently, several cracks were found in the connection area of U-ribs. Further, additional cracks were occurred after some lateral rib plates and longitudinal frames were attached for the purpose of reinforcement. Therefore, the connection method in the U-ribs reinforcement was changed from the bolting to the weldment to get rid of stress concentration and further cracking. In this study, the stress in the U-ribs connection was analysed numerically and variable amplitude stress for the real traffic loads was measured experimentally before and after the frame reinforcement. Finally, the effects of reinforcement method were investigated and discussed.