ABSTRACT
The steel bridges form a significant part of all bridge structures. In many cases, they were built many years ago and the age of hundred years is not an exception. That creates opportunities and necessities for the renovation of those structures. Most common renovation is focused on the bridge equipment, such as railing, footways and steel floors on the open decks. Although the traditional material for this purpose is steel, the maintenance costs are forcing the bridge operators to look for more durable and maintenance free solutions. The research reported in this paper is focused on the application of FRP (fibre reinforced polymers) for bridge equipment of railway bridges. Several FRP solutions were designed, fabricated and constructed on the test steel bridge and then exposed to the load test in order to verify the operator requirements. As the FRP is a fire sensitive material, the common fire scenarios were also tested, such as the fire of the rubbish between timber bridge sleepers and fire of the electric cables.
The paper describes main principles of the solutions, their load tests and the in-situ fire test for the most common fire scenarios. The conclusions and recommendations are given as well. The view on the test bridge after FRP application during the railing load tests https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315207681/cd556cd4-4dcf-4efe-8e29-56fc67b8bfbd/content/fig301_1.jpg"/> Burning of papers placed between two sleepers below the FRP floor deck PA40. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315207681/cd556cd4-4dcf-4efe-8e29-56fc67b8bfbd/content/fig301_2.jpg"/> Gas temperature development in time measured below FRP floor panel PA40. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315207681/cd556cd4-4dcf-4efe-8e29-56fc67b8bfbd/content/fig301_3.tif"/>
