Rehabilitation of the Existing 4 Span Continuous Girder Bridge Using Prestressing Technique

In this paper, the rehabilitation and structural upgrading of the existing bridge over the Lim River in Montenegro is presented. The bridge is a reinforced concrete (RC) continuous girder bridge with four spans

24.6 m + 27.6 m + 27.6 m + 24.6 m and total length 104.4 m. Due to extreme flooding, erosion of river waters occurred at the first river column causing 640 mm of its uniform settlement. Serious damage occurred at the superstructure of the bridge. The structural upgrading of the superstructure is done using the prestressing technique. The arrangement of cables was selected, which favourably affects the load-bearing capacity, balances the bridge system and ensures its adequate safety. The advantage with applied prestressing technique are: almost negligible change in weight; the stresses introduced into the elements are opposite to the exploitation stresses; decrease in crack width as well as crack width limitation and consequently increase in bridge durability. Results are reported in the paper.