Determination of Load-Carrying Capacity of Railway Concrete Bridges According to New Guideline

Abstract

The handbook "Determination of load-carrying capacity of railway bridges" [1] has grown up due to updating of old Slovak guideline [2] taking into account Eurocodes. In the case of railway bridges, there are about 2300 bridges in Slovakia and about 78 % of them are from concrete or masonry. About 28 % of bridge total number is older than 77 years and about 18 % of them are even older than 100 years. Therefore, there is need to make regular inspections, recalculate them – determine of load-carrying capacity and then to decide, which of them should be repaired or reconstructed [3,4]. The paper presents general concepts and basic assumptions for determining the load-carrying capacity of reinforced and prestressed concrete railway bridges. In contrast to design of a new bridge, additional data related to existing bridge condition and its behaviour like information from regular inspections and real state of degradation can be taken into account. Special recommendation and allowances for global analysis of existing concrete superstructures for the purpose of the load-carrying capacity estimation are discussed, as well.