Search results for "Gerber saddle"
showing 6 items of 6 documents
Degraded Gerber Saddles in RC Bridges
2023
Sudden failure of reinforced concrete (RC) or prestressed concrete (PC) Gerber saddles of bridges and viaducts has occurred all around in the word in the last few years due to corrosion of steel bars. The danger of sudden and brittle failure is often due to general and pitting corrosion of steel bars, concrete crushing, and loss of bond in steel bars. In this paper, the flexural response of reinforced concrete Gerber supports under their self-weight with or without service loads was investigated through determination of the load-deflection response of beams, with the focus on the consequences of pitting corrosion and loss of bond in steel bars. A simplified strut-and-tie model was developed…
THE REHABILITATION THROUGH EXTERNAL PRESTRESSING OF HISTORICAL REINFORCED CONCRETE BRIDGES WITH REDUCED PERFORMANCE: A CASE STUDY
2022
Many existing reinforced concrete bridges exhibit behaviour at the Service Limit State and the Ultimate Limit State which can be considered unsatisfactory with respect to the current provisions of Codes, but which are actually deficiencies deriving from obsolete calculation methods, structure age, material degradation, diffuse or localized corrosion and increased loads. Among these, cantilever bridges with half-joints may present a decrease in global safety coefficients for the most stressed current sections of the deck or in the local ones, that affect the performance of elements sensitive to degradation, such as Gerber saddles. In these cases, simple strengthening interventions through ex…
Performance of a historical cantilever reinforced concrete bridge with half-joint degradation
2022
The lack of maintenance of roadway concrete bridges built from the Second World War until the 70 s of the 20th century has led in recent years to an ever-increasing request for safety assessments. When bridge performance in terms of Serviceability Limit State (SLS) and Ultimate Limit State (ULS) has to be evaluated, in-situ visual inspections and load tests for safety and maintenance assessment have to be coupled with structural analysis. In order to identify a sound bridge structural model and to assess the actual conservation state, more refined models than those usually considered for section and reinforcement design should be used to reproduce the results of load tests and perform globa…
Applicazione delle Linee guida italiane alle valutazioni di sicurezza strutturale del ponte Corleone sulla tangenziale di Palermo
2022
The "nominal life" of a large part of existing reinforced and prestressed concrete bridges, in Italy, is expiring, often in the absence of ordinary or extraordinary maintenance. Consequently, the Italian infrastructural network is in a critical phase, followed by the alarmed awareness of the public opinion, especially after the collapse of the Polcevera viaduct. Specific guidelines on risk classifi-cation, management, safety assessment, monitoring of existing bridges have been issued by the Superior Council of Public Works in 2020, to address the emergency. Between ‘50s and ‘70s of the last century, important examples of reinforced and prestressed concrete bridges were built in Italy by the…
Degradation and rehabilitation of Gerber saddles of concrete bridges
2022
In recent decades, many concrete bridges, built in the 60s and 70s of the 20th Century with a Gerber-girder scheme, show severe damage of the saddles due to concrete degradation and reinforcement corrosion. On the basis of the recent Ministerial Guidelines for the assessment of existing bridges, it is necessary to evaluate the state of the Gerber saddles in a large number of bridges on both main and secondary roads. To do this, it is necessary to apply flexible assessment procedures that can be adapted to several situations and that allow a speedy assessment of the intervention priorities. The methodologies of intervention represent the crucial point for a rapid rehabilitation of these infr…
Assessment and strengthening of reinforced concrete bridges with half-joint deterioration
2022
Existing Niagara-type concrete cantilever bridges, which in Italy are called Gerber bridges, suffer from degradation due to reinforcement corrosion and a consequent reduced load-bearing capacity. The assessment of these structures is therefore an important part of the procedures for analyzing the state of existing bridges and any interventions required for their retrofitting. In particular, safety against failure of the half-joint must be evaluated with respect to the behavior of the entire bridge and its state of conservation, determining what the conditions are that lead to failure, in terms of loads, state of stress, and possibly cracking state. This evaluation has to be carried out cons…