Fatigue life assessment of critical bridge members using online monitoring data has been
investigated in recent years. To make a quick and efficient evaluation, a representative block of strain
cycles is usually defined. However, such block sometimes fails to cover the change in fatigue damage
by temperature fluctuation and traffic growth, which is important to the life prediction of the welds in
a long-span suspension bridge. To find the influence of temperature and traffic volume on the fatigue
damage, an equivalent vehicle load method is dedicated through finite element analysis, and the
statistical disposition of traffic flow has been conducted, using data from the Runyang Bridge. The
influence of traffic growth can be estimated and eliminated from the total damage so that the
temperature effect on the fatigue damage is finally obtained. It is found that temperature has a linear
effect on the fatigue damage. According to the fitted relationship between fatigue damage,
temperature and the traffic flow, a more objective fatigue assessment is undertaken, based on the
rain-flow counting method and the Palgren-Miner rule.