ABSTRACT
The steel bridges form a significant part of all bridge structures. Mostly, they were built many years ago and the age of hundred years is not an exception. The paper describes the existing state of steel bridges in the Czech Republic, and evaluates their damages and failures, based on the extensive survey of inspection reports.
Next part of the paper is focused on the analysis of the behaviour of the corroded members, as the most common damage, that is based on the experimental analysis. The four riveted beams different level of corrosion were exposed to the static load test, as shown in Figure 1. The results were analysed and they are discussed in the paper. The corrosion weakening of all four samples was taken into account by three various ways and analysed. Arrangement of load test. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315207681/cd556cd4-4dcf-4efe-8e29-56fc67b8bfbd/content/fig159_1.jpg"/>
Last part of the paper shows the experimental analysis of the 126 years old railway bridge, see Figure 2. The large static, dynamic and brake load tests were done here. The load was applied by the 75 t locomotive HV751, and also real traffic. The 20 strain gauges were placed on the critical places and 9 accelerometers were used in vertical and horizontal direction. The position of the measured places is shown in the Figure 3. The overall view on the bridge. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315207681/cd556cd4-4dcf-4efe-8e29-56fc67b8bfbd/content/fig159_2.jpg"/> The bridge dimensions and the position of the measured points. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315207681/cd556cd4-4dcf-4efe-8e29-56fc67b8bfbd/content/fig159_3.tif"/>
The paper shows, that assessment of the steel structures is a complex and difficult process. The findings and results, given in the paper, can help to understand it more and to precise it.
