13 A large number of the bridges in the European railway networks are metallic bridges. 14 The increasing volume of traffic and axle weight of trains mean that for many 15 structures the loads today are much higher than those envisaged when they were 16 designed. This paper presents a summary of the different recommendations and 17 advices proposed in “Guidelines for Load and Resistance Assessm...

Load-bearing structures of deck railway bridges with encased filler beams have been used for short and middle spans of a maximum of 24 metres. For over a hundred years they have been designed in cases with little headroom. The first bridges were constructed with no interaction between steel beams and concrete floor slabs, the structural steel working as a bearing element and the concrete in the...

Steel bridges that are under severe chloride exposure due to deicing salts or marine environmental effects require frequent maintenance and repair activities to extend their service life and maintain an adequate performance level. In addition to the direct maintenance cost, these maintenance actions may lead to indirect costs associated with traffic delays and environmental effects that can sig...

Thin-walled hollow steel columns, either circular or box shaped, are commonly used as piers in bridges. Recent earthquakes, e.g. Hyogoken-Nanbu or Kobe 1995, on the other hand have shown that these columns are vulnerable to damage when subjected to earthquake loading. This paper presents a new innovative thin-walled hollow steel column fabricated of corrugated plates, “thin-walled steel columns...

In this paper, a three dimensional analysis is performed to investigate the static instability of long-span cable-stayed bridges due to wind loading. Cables made of carbon fiber composite cable (CFCC) are studied. Nonlinearity due to displacement-dependent wind loading is considered. A 1400meter cable-stayed bridge model is used to investigate the static behavior of bridges with both steel and ...

Under badly environmental conditions as well as complex loads, corrosion of embedded reinforcing steel bars in concrete is common for reinforced concrete (RC) structures. Fatigue of corrosion reinforcing steel bars is a key problem for old RC bridges. To assess the residual fatigue life of aged existing RC bridges, the most new study information on fatigue of natural corrosion reinforcement is ...

A reliability-based method for inspection scheduling of steel bridges is proposed to yield the optimal (most economical) inspection strategy that meets an acceptable safety level through the planned service life. Two fatigue reliability formulations that can be applied for most details in steel bridges are presented. For details classified according to AASHTO fatigue categories, a limit state f...

FOREWORD Salt-induced reinforcing steel corrosion in concrete bridges has undoubtedly become a considerable economic burden to many State and local transportation agencies. Since the iron in the steel has a natural tendency to revert eventually to its most stable oxide state, this problem will, unfortunately, still be with us, but to a much lesser degree due to the use of various corrosion prot...

Recent research has focused on rehabilhation and strengthening of steel structures and bridges using fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) materials. The bond behavior of FRP materials to steel structures is quite different from lhat of concrete structures. Preliminary test results showed the occurrence of very high bond stresses for most strengthening applications due to the amount of strengthening r...

Bridge material selection has traditionally been b~ed on e.ngineering and economi~ criteria. With the increasing interest of the public, industry, and government m sustainable:: development, en~lronmental. assessment in construction is becoming more important. However, we need metrtcs and data on deSign alternatives for effective decision making. In this paper, we present results of a life cycl...