Performance of piles in integral abutment bridges under thermo-mechanical cyclic loads

Many investigations of failed structures have determined that fatigue was the cause of the failure. Fatigue occurs from the daily and seasonal changes in the temperature. The practice and procedures undertaken to reduce the number of failures due to fatigue is the inspection of the structure on a regular basis. An element of a bridge is the pile foundation. Piles are underground and cannot be easily inspected to determine if fatigue cracks have occurred. This paper presents an analytical procedure that can be used to determine the fatigue life of a pile. The method was used to analyze a pile in an Integral abutment bridge (IAB) subjected to thermo-mechanical loading due to daily and seasonal temperature changes. The fatigue life of the pile was determined for different bridge lengths. The procedure presented can thus be used in the investigation of failure or performance problems of structural elements that cannot be inspected visually.