Abstract:In order to overcome fatigue crack and early damages in steel bridge decks, a composite deck paving system, consisting of steel plate and thin Reactive Powder Concrete (RPC) , was presented. The calculation on the local finite element model of composite deck paving system indicated that the maximum tensile stress, shearing strain, and vertical displacement decreased by up to 54.8%, 78.9% and 39.1% respectively, compared with flexible pavement. Laboratory experiments, i.e. interlayer shearing test and tensile fatigue test, showed that the shearing strength of the interface between RPC and asphalt wearing layer was 1.3MPa at the high temperature of 60℃, bearing capacity of the shear connector was 66.75kN, and no crack appeared in cantilever beam under two millions of repetitions loads ( stress amplitude from 7.5MPa to 14.5MPa). It was found that the thin composite deck paving system can effectively reduce stress (strain) amplitude and local vertical deformation. Meanwhile, the shear strengths of interlayer were enough to resist the stresses in unfavorable conditions.