Safety level evaluation for existing rockfall protection gallery Rieinertobel

Within the coming decade many ageing rockfall protection galleries in the Swiss Alps will require rehabilitation measures to ensure their durability. Before a gallery is rehabilitated, its current safety level needs to be assessed to decide whether strengthening measures are also necessary. Generally, an assessment of structures several decades old with current design standards will result in a recommendation for expensive strengthening measures. However, design standards may offer the possibility for a risk-based assessment, e.g. Swiss standard SIA 269 [1], which allows for evaluating strengthening measures in consideration of both safety and cost-efficiency. This paper describes a risk-based assessment for the rockfall protection gallery Rieinertobel and shows that target safety requirements can be met without strengthening measures. The described approach allows for managing ageing infrastructure in a cost-efficient manner without compromising safety.‌‌