Prediction of the corrosion-fatigue Wöhler curves of prestressing steel from crack growth rate measurements

Abstract

Corrosion-fatigue Wöhler's curves obtention of prestressing steels by direct experimental measurements requires a high number of long duration tests, thus being an impractical approach. Therefore, a new mwthod for deriving corrosion-fatigue Wöhler's curves by numerical integration of crack growth rate data in prestressing steels was envisaged. Llorca and Sánchez-Gálvez method was used for numerical integration of ecperimental crack growth rates to derive the number cycles to rupure as a function of stress range. Wöhler's curve obtained a show good agreement with experimental results of corrosion-fatigue tests on smooth samples and can be used for fatigue calculation of prestressed structures subjected to cyclic loading in agressive envoironments.