Flexural fatigue strength of plain concrete

Abstract

This paper presents a new expression to describe the flexural fatigue strength of plain concrete. it incorporates the effects of stress ratio and stress level into the fatigue equation and allows a statistical description of fatigue life in terms of both stress level and stress ratio. A concept of equivalent fatigue life is introduced in the derivation of the new expression. Laboratory flexural fatigue experiments were carried out on 78 plain concrete beams to verify the validity of the fatigue equation.