ABSTRACT
The paper presents an approach to structural robustness evaluation of selected footbridges. The motivation of the study is to give another point of view indicating an important aspect of the required robustness of structures. The term robustness is defined in the European standards however in a general way only. Precise definition or a common measure for this required structural feature still has not been found nor accepted. In the paper a simple measure based on a section utilisation ratio is proposed. On the basis of selected examples of bridge structures application of the measure is explained and tested. Effect of a specific type of deterioration - failure of structure supports - is considered. Some general conclusions on usefulness of the approach are drawn and some recommendations for structural forms of beam bridge structures are formulated.
