Konferens: International workshop - strengthening of steel bridges, 2010, Stockholm, Sweden

The assessment of the structural integrity and remaining life are essential tools for the management of ageing infrastructures, especially of bridges. Extensive experiments were conducted on a short-span two-lane riveted steel-girder railway bridge near Sacile, Italy. It is a common structural scheme for railway bridges of about ninety years old. Being in service since 1918, it was transported intact in 2006 and moved to a structural laboratory. Within a fatigue assessment framework, first physical and physical-chemical tests were performed, characterizing the material properties; then, static and cyclic full scale tests were carried out in order to compare the actual behaviour with respect to that predicted by simple calculations. Finally, high-cycle fatigue tests on the short diaphragm riveted shear connections were performed. The experimental investigation allowed us to test the safe condition of the short riveted diaphragm connections after almost one century of service, and to compare the current design fatigue curves with experimental findings. Moreover, the current practice to equate the fatigue behaviour of rivets to that of non-preloaded bolts proved to be a safe comparison.