A baseline-free methodology utilizing ultrasonic guided waves based on adjacent signal difference coefficients (ASDC) is developed for fatigue cracks detection in orthotropic steel deck in this paper. The crack detection tests are conducted on a test orthotropic steel deck with cracks added under welded stiffeners in advance. Two different cases, i.e. the crack far away from the floorbeam and the crack under the intersection of longitudinal trapezoidal rib and floorbeam have been tested. Locations and lengths of fatigue cracks can be obtained from the adjacent signal difference coefficients. The results show that the proposed baseline-free ultrasonic guided wave method detects and estimates the locations and lengths of the cracks correctly for all cases. This indicates that the proposed baseline-free fatigue crack detection approach has the potential to be applied to the crack detection in actual orthotropic steel decks.
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