Developing Eurocode Annexes for Assessment of Historical Bridges

The Program of Bridges and Quay Walls (PBK in Dutch) assessed the structural safety of about 850 historical bridges in Amsterdam. The first aim is to find possible unsafe bridges and manage this by load reduction, monitoring en temporarily reinforcements. The second aim is to assess the structural safety of the bridges against a new developed Amsterdam standard. This standard is based on a research program to get better insight in de strength of wooden pile foundations, steel concrete bridge decks, masonry abutments, masonry quay walls and the real axle loads of traffic on the bridges in the inner city. It turns out that also existing bridges older than their design life-time (100 years) can still be considered safe and have a remaining lifetime of more than 30 years. The number of bridges that need to be replaced or renovated is therefore limited. This paper will give an overview of the research done to obtain the Assessment Standard for Amsterdam Bridges (TAB) and will show the results for about 850 bridges in Amsterdam.