Zur Richtlinie für die Nachrechnung von Straßenbrücken im Bestand (Nachrechnungsrichtlinie)

About the Provisions for evaluating necessary upgrades of older road bridges

While analyzing traffic volume on current German autobahns, it became obvious that the planned capacity of most highway bridges has been almost exceeded by daily traffic volume, including increasingly heavy trucks with rising numbers of axles and load size.
In fact, to ensure future long-term serviceability of the German Autobahn system, there is no way around refurbishing most of these bridges, by combining ordinary maintenance work with strengthening measures, and replacing numerous others as well. A realistic assessment of existing highway bridges that comprises bearing capacity, serviceability, and fatigue resistance in order to evaluate their structural health is a widely accepted prerequisite for a long-lasting refurbishment strategy. The provisions reported here for evaluating necessary upgrades of older bridges provide an appropriate tool for setting uniform standards in assessing existing highway bridges to ensure comparability of results and the conclusions drawn from them.