Structural assessment of concrete bridges

Journal article, 2008

The paper summarises the work on concrete bridges performed in the EU project Sustainable Bridges. The work provides enhanced assessment methods that are able to prove higher load-carrying capacities and longer fatigue lives for existing concrete railway bridges, and is implemented in a Guideline [1]. Methods for determination of in-situ material properties and advanced methods for structural analysis were developed. One main focus was non-linear analysis, since these provides the greatest potential for discovering of additional sources for load-carrying capacity. Furthermore, methods to assess the remaining structural resistance of deteriorated concrete bridges with respect to corrosion and fatigue were developed.