PSI - Issue 57

Jacques BERTHELLEMY et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 57 (2024) 872–903 J. Berthellemy / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2023) 000 – 000

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Fig. 31 : Bridge over the River Gardon at Brignon built in 1988

• These regulations banning weathering steel in order to avoid fatigue risks for motorways have not prevented steel-concrete composite construction from developing and increasing its share of the French motorway bridge market using painted steel. • If we look at other markets, most of the containers are made of weathering steel, but are given an additional anti-corrosion coating as they are often used at sea. • More significant is the case of the crane market, where weathering steel is not used for obvious safety reasons regarding fatigue. 5.2 Change of the recommendations in 2015 without fatigue concern However, the prudent 1985 French recommendations were changed in 2015 [35] without serious consideration for the fatigue question. I joigned the working group to alert the members regarding this problem. But the 2015 recommendations for the use of W-steel were directed by the same person who validated the fatigue calculation of the bridge described in section 2.5 (Figure 11-a). The opinion of the fatigue expert was not taken into account at all and, what's more, my name was among those who signed the 2015 document. It is regrettable that there is no record of the views expressed by members of a working group in France, as there is for instance in the United States.