Mechanism based Assessment of Masonry Arch Bridges

Abstract

The masonry arch bridges are treated as a separate class of structures for the structural assessment. Till date a number of methods for the assessment of masonry arch bridges exist but every method has got its own limitations of use, and none of them are generally accepted. Among the problems of development of such an approach, the problem of selection of a suitable failure criterion for the prediction of the collapse load is critical. The interaction of the axial force and the moments play a key role in the failure of arch bridges. In view of this experimentally investigated results of the axial force moment interaction are reported here, along with the implementation of the same through a developed FORTRAN program for the prediction of load carrying capacity of the masonry arch bridges. The application of the method has been demonstrated on the bridges tested in field, and the load carrying capacity has been compared with the other available methods of the assessment as reported in the literature.