ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: Bridges are planned for a long service life with changing demands that can hardly be fully anticipated. The traffic is still growing, the live loads increase, de-icing salt is used more and more since the seventies of the last century and additional actions like failure of a column, terrorism, settlements etc. arise that are normally not considered when the structure was designed. Due to the amount of traffic it is not possible anymore to reduce the number of traffic lanes or even to close the whole bridge during repairs. In fact, during repair periods the full traffic is diverted on side-strips that are not designed for that purpose. Although all these facts lead to higher risks, the society claims to limit risks more than ever. A concept to overcome this situation is to design new bridges for robustness and to judge the robustness of existing ones.
