Improved assessment of concrete bridges

The assessment and retrofitting of existing bridge structures is an important task for structural engineers. A new approach to bridge evaluation was developed, involving a multi-level strategy for structural analysis. These analysis concepts for verifying the required safety margins provide engineers with tools to more accurately simulate the structural behaviour of bridges, as needed to predict the failure mode. This paper describes the basic procedures and demonstrates the applicability and the potential benefits of an increasingly advanced and accurate analysis for bridge assessment using nonlinear FE analysis and including model uncertainties, of example case studies.