Abstract
A majority of existing railway steel bridges that has been built at the beginning of 20 th century are riveted structures. Many of the bridges are still in operation after several phases of repair and strengthening. The problem of the structures is the assessment of the present safety for traffic loads and the remaining service life. Replacement with new structures raises financial, technical and political problems. Along with the classical method of damage accumulation, a new approach based on the fracture mechanics principles is proposed. The paper includes a general presentation of the verification methods and a case study. In the following investigations of the old riveted railway steel bridge over the Mures River in Arad are presented. This structure has been dismantled in 2000, after 88 years in operation. Therefore a detailed analysis on main structural elements could be made. Many similar structures with the same age are still in operation. The conclusions can be extended to other countries from Middle and Southeast Europe, where the situation of the existing bridges is comparable.
Translated title of the contribution | Fracture Mechanics as a complementary method for determination of service life of old riveted steel bridges in Romania |
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Original language | German |
Pages | 691-700 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Volume | 74 |
No | 9 |
Specialist publication | Stahlbau |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Sep 2005 |