Evaluation and Repair of Wrought Iron and - Purdue e-Pubs ...

2but also what material properties to utilize when designing repairs. This makes the repairand rehabilitation process extremely difficult.The material behavior of the historical wrought iron is very different from thatof common structural steel. The structure of historical wrought iron consists primarily offerrite iron, along with numerous deposits of impurities, commonly known as slag, thatare elongated throughout the metal. This creates a fibrous structure in historic wroughtiron, as can be seen in Figure 1.2. Since the properties of the metal vary considerably dueto the large deposits of impurities, it may be difficult to utilize typical repair proceduresused in steel structures in these historical wrought iron structures.1.2 Objective of ResearchThe research study involved three primary objectives: (1) collect informationrelated to the performance and repair of wrought iron bridge structures, (2) initiate adatabase of sample material properties through data collection and experimental testing,and (3) develop a list of suggested repair techniques for joints and members typical ofwrought iron bridge construction.Upon the completion of these objectives, the historical properties of wroughtiron were more fully understood and some typical repair procedures for historicalwrought iron bridge members were developed. The properties of wrought iron weredetermined both by collecting data from previous studies and by performing experimentaltesting with wrought iron materials from two different bridges. The repair procedureswere also developed from experimental testing and analysis of literary research.