Fullscale testing and assessment of a steel struss bridge

Thomas Blanksvärd, Jens Häggström, Peter Collin
2015 Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Performance-based and Life-cycle Structural Engineering (PLSE 2015)   unpublished
A large amount of resources has been invested in building and maintaining existing infrastructure. Several of these structures are now becoming old and do not meet the requirements of today and/or are reaching the end of their technical lifespan. It is not possible to replace all of these structures, that are deemed or are about to be deemed obsolete, due to high cost and environmental impacts. An approach to keep these structures in use for a longer time is through an innovative and
more » ... assessment of the actual state of stress and behavior. In such cases, using structural health monitoring to assess the structure might be an efficient way to extend the life of the structure. This paper describes a unique monitoring program for two similar 33 m long steel truss bridges situated in Sweden. One of these bridges, Aby River Bridge, had a regulated axle load of 25 tons and was tested to failure in 2013. The other bridge, Rautasjokk Bridge, has a regulated axle load of 30 tons which will be upgraded to 32.5 tons and will be in use for the coming years. The monitoring program was performed as; monitoring of the bridge over Aby River when it was still in service. After replacement the old bridge was moved and tested under static loads to assess boundary conditions and state of stress. Structural parts from this bridge were then disassembled and tested for material properties and fatigue capacity. A theoretical assessment of the Rautasjokk Bridge was performed based on the conclusions from the measurements on the Aby Bridge. Finally, the plan is to verify findings by performing measurements on live loading for the Rautasjokk Bridge in service limit state, to be performed during autumn 2015. The aim of this project is to verify the continuous safety for the Rautasjokk Bridge by using input from tests performed at both bridges.
doi:10.14264/uql.2016.627 fatcat:gtkg3ynqxvbydjpel3lt6zheiu