Exceptional road transport plays a crucial role in the development of large-scale projects in the construction, energy, and manufacturing industries. However, transporting oversized or heavy loads requires a prior careful assessment of the bridges’ structural performance to enhance safety and preserve future functionality. In Italy, the compatibility of exceptional transit over bridges is governed by the “Guidelines for the Classification and Risk Management, Safety Assessment, and Monitoring of Existing Bridges” and the new “Transportation in exceptional condition” guidelines. This paper provides a general overview of the regulatory assessment framework with the final aim of highlighting possible criticalities. By their application to the case study of a reinforced concrete bridge, this paper explores aspects that are not currently considered in the guidelines and investigates their relevance to structural assessment. Specifically, the checks at the serviceability limit state and the consideration of accidental transverse eccentricity of the exceptional load are addressed.
Margheriti et al. (Wed,) studied this question.
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