1.School of Civil Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu Sichuan 610031, China
2.National Engineering Research Center for Geological Disaster Prevention Technology in Land Transportation, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu Sichuan 610031, China
3.China Railway Eryuan Engineering Group Co. , Ltd. , Chengdu Sichuan 610031, China
During long-term operation, railway bridges are continuously subjected to cyclic train loads. As service life increases, stress concentration within the bearings can easily induce fatigue damage, seriously threatening structural safety. Therefore, the anti-fatigue performance of bearings has been receiving increasing attention. This paper focuses on a new type of spherical-steel bearing that adopts a high-performance modified ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene sliding plate and an optimized anti-fatigue design. Based on the operational load spectrum of an actual bridge, variable-amplitude loads were converted into constant-amplitude loads equivalent to 2 million cycles using the rainflow counting method and Miner’s linear cumulative damage theory. A 1/8 scale model fatigue performance test was conducted. The results show that the vertical stiffness of the bearing exhibits a two-stage degradation characteristic, decreasing to 79.6% of its initial value after 2 million cycles; cumulative energy dissipation increases by 60%, while the equivalent damping ratio decreases by 0.77%, primarily due to the damage mechanism dominated by micro-crack friction. The stresses at critical parts of the bearing remain within the elastic range, with a maximum Von Mises stress of 42.12 MPa, well below the material yield strength, and no fatigue cracks were observed. Under normal railway bridge operating conditions, this new spherical-steel bearing shows no significant signs of fatigue failure. Its fatigue performance meets design requirements over the service life, ensuring the safety and reliability of the bridge structure.
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