Steel-Concrete Composite Bridge Diagnostics and Reconstruction

Many bridges in Slovakia are reaching their designed life span these days. Due to frequent errors during the construction of those bridges as well as bad maintenance, steel-concrete bridges are now in a critical state and urgent repairs of those structures are needed. In this article progressive methods of retrofitting existing concrete bridges are shown. In the presented method, the original pillars and original bridge deck will remain in their place, and on the existing deck new composite, steel-concrete bridge deck with encased steel members of progressive shape will be created. This method brings significant cost reduction for such retrofitting and enables the application of increased loads on the bridge.