Volume 1, Issue 2 • October 4, 2025
Fatigue Characterization of Recycled PET Composite Beams for Low-Cost Bridge Deck Panels
Ethan Clarke (Student Researcher) — Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering; Prof. Nadine Al-Khatib (Mentor) — Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Abstract
The authors evaluate a recycled PET-glass composite under one million load cycles to estimate service-life suitability for secondary bridge deck applications. Coupon and beam testing showed progressive stiffness degradation but no catastrophic fracture under 0.6 design stress ratio. A simple Miner-rule calibration, generated from undergraduate laboratory data, predicts inspection intervals within 8% of observed failure-onset trends.
Figure 4 summarizes fatigue life distributions and confidence intervals for three manufacturing conditions.
Citation
Clarke, E., & Al-Khatib, N. (2025). Fatigue Characterization of Recycled PET Composite Beams for Low-Cost Bridge Deck Panels. The Emerging Engineering Investigators Journal, 1(2), 59-72. https://doi.org/10.5281/eeij.2025.113
DOI: 10.5281/eeij.2025.113