Mechanical Evaluation of Corrosion-Resistant Steel Plates for Bridge Girder Fabrication

In highly corrosive and saline conditions, such as bridges near salt water or those exposed to deicing salt, conventional structural steels experience high corrosion rates, and weathering steels fail to develop their protective coating. In contrast to conventional structural steels which are prone to corrosion when exposed to the environment, stainless steels are innately corrosion resistant. Therefore, stainless steel has been considered as a primary construction material in these saline environments to reduce the costs associated with repainting and maintenance of the structural steel. Recently, a new steel alloy, known as ASTM A1010, has been explored for use in plate girder bridges. ASTM A1010 is a 10.5-12% chromium steel with a higher level of corrosion resistance than conventional steel and weathering steel and a potentially lower cost than stainless steel. This study investigates the material properties of A1010 steel through tensile tests that were conducted on steel plate specimens. The monotonic tensile tests were performed following the ASTM specifications on base material specimens. In order to investigate the effect of plate thickness on tensile strength, specimens with three different thicknesses (1/2 in, 1 in, and 1 3/4 in) oriented parallel to the rolling direction were tested. For the plates with 1/2 in thickness, specimens orientated transverse to the rolling direction were also tested to reveal the effect of rolling direction on the tensile characteristics of A1010 steel. A video extensometer was used to obtain the strains during the tests and stress-strain curves were plotted. The overall mechanical behavior of the A1010 stainless steel was evaluated and compared with other steel types used in bridge construction.