Fatigue Behaviour of Steel Bridge Joints Strenghtened with FRP Laminates

One of the most relevant concerns about steel and metal bridges stands on the repair and rehabilitation of existing structures. In fact, the remaining service life of steel bridges is limited by fatigue damage and in order to ensure the safety of these bridges it is often necessary to inspect the structure in order to discover the presence of fatigue cracks. New reinforcement techniques are needed, in order to prevent fatigue cracking and to increase bridge safety at the same time. According to the contemporary knowledge on the matter, two alternatives of rehabilitation are given: the traditional interventions and the use of carbon fibre composites. In this paper, in order to explain the appropriate use of these techniques, the most common knowledge on the matter are presented and explained, focusing in particular on the real scale testing results coming from the last decades research applications related to steel bridge engineering. This study should in this way be useful for future research applications and for bridge engineering real case rehabilitations.