Design and Construction of an Arch Bridge over Railway Line no. 132 in Poland using BIM Tools

This paper presents the design and construction for the new road-over-rail bridge in Dabrowa, Poland. The bridge is a replacement to the existing structure which significantly deteriorated over the years since the 1960s when it was built. Before the decision was taken to replace the existing bridge, a comprehensive study had been undertaken to investigate the possibilities of refurbishing the existing structure in order to minimise the CO2 and environmental impact of the project. Ultimately, a decision was made to replace the bridge, driven by the functional constraints related to the very low vertical clearance, which would significantly restrain any future enhancements to the railway line forming a part of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T). The paper discusses non-conventional technical solutions that were applied to the design and construction of the bridge.