Erfahrungen bei Nachrechnung und Verstärkung von Brücken

Experiences concerning structural assessment and strengthening of older bridges

While analysing current traffic volume on German highways, an exceedance of the planned bearing capacity for most of the highway bridges was detected. This exceedance is mainly caused by increasing daily traffic volume, including increasingly heavy trucks with a rising number of axes and load size. In fact, strengthening of most of these bridges becomes necessary to ensure future long-term serviceability of the German Autobahn system.
In the meantime, first experiences in terms of structural assessment and strengthening of older highway bridges were collected. Therefore, this report presents gained experiences concerning the refurbishment of more than 250 older highway bridges. Furthermore, recommendations for application, interpretation and evolution of technical regulations are given. For these purposes process steps, methods of choice and technical solutions are described.