Demolition of a reinforced concrete overpass. Case study

Abstract Bridges are built to fulfil different roles depending on the needs of the site. One of the most important role is to provide easy and non-life-threating access to different areas of community interest. Over the period of their operation, structures suffer various degradations whose extension may endanger the integrity of the construction, or the changing needs of the users. This raises the problem of finding the most efficient methods of removing the structure from use and returning the land to other uses adapted to the period needs. The structure to which we have turned our attention in this article is located in Bucharest. It is represented by an overpass built in a frame solution with inclined pillars, having the shape of the letter ”V”. The construction material consists mainly of monolithic cast reinforced concrete. The present article presents a modern methodology for the demolition of the reinforced concrete overpass in discussion, through the progressive dismantling of the component construction elements. This method has many advantages, particularly in terms of the possibility of recycling the construction materials used and in terms of minimising traffic congestion on the railway.