Effect of Easement
Observations from the field evaluation surveys reveal that
the most common defect found in standard joint bars is cracking
at the top center of the bar. Failure of joint bars is presumed to
be related to metal fatigue. However, fatigue initiation at the
top of the joint bar is counterintuitive. Figure 9 shows a
schematic of a joint bar in bending as a wheel passes over it.
When the wheel is directly over the center of the joint, the
maximum tension in the bar occurs at the bottom while the top
of the bar is in compression. The magnitude of the maximum
compressive stress for standard joint bar is roughly 90% of the
magnitude of the maximum tensile stress due to the centroid
location. After the wheel has traveled some distance away from
the joint, the nature (i.e. tensile versus compressive) of the
bending stress reverses; the top of the bar is in tension while the
bottom of the bar is in compression. The schematic in Figure 9
shows the bending stress cycles for the top and the bottom of
the bar assuming a reverse bending factor of 20 percent. This
value is based on the maximum reverse bending calculated from
the theory of beams on elastic foundation, which may be an
overestimate. Moreover, comparison of the stress cycles at the
top and the bottom of the bar indicate that cracking should
initiate at the bottom of the bar because tensile stresses, in
theory, are more damaging than compressive stresses. In other
words, metal fatigue alone cannot explain why crack initiation
occurs at the top of the bar. Two factors come to mind that
affect crack initiation at the top of the bar: lack of easement
and residual stress.