Visual Inspection and Determining Bridge Load Rating over the Torrential Rimac River in Lima, Peru

Nowadays, the appropriate functioning of road infrastructure is a major concern that governments face. One of the structures most vulnerable to failure are bridges. In Peru, the hydrodynamics of torrential rivers, attributable to its geography, generates the collapse in the bridges by scour. Likewise, the increase in service overloads, compared to design loads (HS20), united with the fact that many bridges have more than 50 years in service, is another common factor that contributes to the bridge failures and should be considered in the evaluation of bridges. Therefore, this research aims to inspect, evaluate the load capacity in the superstructure of the Dueñas bridge using the LRFR methodology and propose improvements in the maintenance process. This bridge is made of prestressed concrete built in the 60’s and over the torrential Rimac river in Lima, Peru. The findings, according to the field visit, indicate the main problems are scour in the intermediate pier and damage in the concrete in the structural elements. Additionally, the rating factor (RF) calculated in the beams do not exceed to unit which implies that they only need structural reinforcement. Finally, improvements were proposed for the prevention of failure in the beams and scour in the substructure.