ABSTRACT
Abstract A 37 year old road bridge in Eastern Switzerland will be decommissioned at the end of October 1996 and will be subjected to load testing up to failure. The paper describes the location and the structure of the bridge and the contemporary design conditions. The development of these conditions is examined leading to general reflections on the evaluation of existing structures. Subsequently the conditions of field testing are checked and the testing project is presented. Finally, preliminary failure predictions are outlined, ending with a call for comparative calculations. Keywords: Prooftesting, decommissioning, road bridges.
