Hydraulic Safety Evaluation and Dynamic Investigations of Baghetto Bridge in Italy

Abstract

The present study deals with the structural safety evaluation of a 50-year-old river bridge, called Baghetto Bridge, located in north Italy on the Adda River. Generally speaking, hydraulic processes are the main cause of bridge failure. Scour and hydrodynamic loads have been largely studied by the hydraulic engineering community; however, in practice, integration with structural analysis is often missing. The aim of this research is to provide a multidisciplinary procedure based on hydraulic and dynamic investigations devoted to the structural verification and monitoring of river bridges with traditional mechanical bearings. The deck–river interaction is addressed, studying the influence of debris accumulation on the bridge and performing structural verification of the bearing supports. The actions exerted on the bridge deck by the river current were estimated following the recommendations of the Italian code and making some further assumptions. In addition, dynamic investigations and FE modelling were performed. The results show (1) a relatively fast procedure that can be applied by practitioners to perform structural verification of river bridges with traditional mechanical bearings, and (2) an investigation method to evaluate temperature–frequency correlation as a reference for future inspections.

Keywords

• river bridge
• hydrodynamic action
• deck–river interaction
• hydraulic safety factor
• operational modal analysis
• model updating