Assessment of an existing prestressed concrete bridge in line with fib Bulletin 80

Abstract

The assessment of existing reinforced concrete structures is a critical aspect for engineers. In particular, existing infrastructures are extensively exposed to environmental actions, degradation and variation of traffic loads during their service life. Hence, criteria conceived for new structures can result too conservative. The fib Bulletin 80 defines a new partial factor method suitable for existing reinforced concrete structures and infrastructures accounting for their residual service life, information from tests, measurements of variable actions and reduced target reliability according to economical and human safety criteria. The methodologies proposed in the fib Bulletin 80 have been applied to the assessment of an existing prestressed concrete bridge built in the 90s. The results are finally compared to the outcomes from the assessment performed according to EN1990