ABSTRACT
Prolonging the life of existing steel movable bridges is a paramount problem for managing authorities, where these specific types of bridges have reached a prolonged state of use. The unsatisfactory behavior of these structures under the current type and increasing number of loads make clearer that innovative solutions are needed. For this purpose, the realization of lightweight composite decks is needed, in order to redistribute the common actual load onto a structure conceived with historical codes, characterized by lower design live loads. The possibilities of retrofitting bridges with this solution studied in a recent research program are presented and compared in this study.
