Engineering Commons^™

Optimized Health Monitoring Plans For A Steel, Double-Track Railway Bridge, Ahmed Rageh

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Railway bridges are an essential component of any modern society and play a significant transportation role. During the 19^th and early 20^th centuries steel truss and plate girder bridges were commonly used railway designs, with most of the trusses constructed using pin and eyebar systems and most other load carrying members being riveted, built-up sections.

Many of these bridges are still in use and are subjected to increased railway traffic intensity, loads and speeds. The current practice for evaluating the integrity of bridges in the United States, irrespective of use, is primarily via visual inspection, with those inspections …

Wim Based Load Models For Bridge Serviceability Limit States, Przemyslaw Rakoczy

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The safety of aging bridge inventory is one of the main concerns of the state and federal agencies. Therefore, there is a need to quantify the safety margin of existing infrastructure and new design bridges. The Serviceability Limit States, i.e. fatigue, requires additional statistical parameters and not only the maximum values but also load spectra, i.e. frequency of occurrence of loads. The maximum values are needed for shorter time periods, such as day, week, month or year. Load spectra as well as material resistance are random variables. To quantify the safety margin of existing and future bridges load and resistance …