Numerical assessment of damage in Bolted Steel Plate girders under combined loading

Steel Plate Girder (SPG) bridges are the most widely adopted in bridges around the world due to their structural efficiency and ease of assembly. Since the visual inspection of these bridges is subjective to the inspector’s ability and skill. Damage assessment methods that can identify, locate and quantify damage are gaining popularity. Therefore, this study extends an existing damage assessment method by incorporating self-weight effects, relying on static deflections instead of complex dynamic data, which makes the approach easier to implement in practice. A 3D finite element (FE) model of a spliced SPG was developed to evaluate the approach’s capability to identify and quantify damage across a range of scenarios. The combined loading approach demonstrated sufficient accuracy in identifying, locating, and quantifying damage, although locating damage in asymmetrical damage cases remained challenging due to subtle variations in deflection changes.