In Poland an appreciable developement of bridge building can be seen in recent years. Arch structures are more and more common, because of the original geometrical and aesthetical form, aside with explicit structural system. Paper concerns the applied computational conceptions and researches on an example of two arch bridges. The goal of the studies is to check the correctness of the real construction work and design assumptions,...

This paper illustrates experience in arch bridges test loadings of the research team of Department of Structural Mechanics and Bridge Structures from the Gdansk University of Technology. The presented calculations results constist the analysis of spatial construction schemes made using the finite elements method (FEM) and its comparison to the field studies. Arch bridges with the longest spans, visualisation of the computational...

The problems encountered during the analyzes of structural response of historic masonry railroad arch bridges are described in this paper. The attention is mainly focused on the stiffness of the masonry arches, their strengths and appropriate estimation of railroad load intensity. Issues related to computational modelling of two, existing, almost 130 years old masonry arch railroad bridges are presented in this context. The main...

Load tests of bridges are widely performed in a large number of countries. Deterministic comparison of measurement results to the theoretical, FEM (finite element method)-based outcomes with possible further calibration is mostly applied. Sometimes, the data collected in the tests are also used to calibrate the reliability factors of bridge structures or their components. This work proposes to complement the stage of the load test...