THE SURVEY, THE REPRESENTATION AND THE STRUCTURAL MODELING OF A DATED BRIDGE

Abstract

The in opera concrete bridges characterize often the landscapes crossed by old roads and railways. In particular the arch bridges represent a product of human genius and, in some cases, of his art. In the last few years, at the SmartLab laboratory of the University of Calabria, there were developed activities in the field of surveying, monitoring and representation of structures. In the framework of these activities, Geomatics techniques for the surveying of bridges are widely used since 2014. The results of the measurements are used for documentation and representation purposes, as well as for the reconstruction of the constructive procedures. The finite element modeling of the structures has been obtained to simulate their behavior in case of earthquake. This article describes the activities relating to a bridge dated back to the 50s of the twentieth century: it is an arch bridge made of reinforced concrete. The surveying is aimed to determine the exact reconstruction of the geometry, the identification of the foundation settlement as well as the Finite Element Modeling (FEM) in order to allow structural identification and reverse engineering process. The instruments and techniques used for surveying and modeling operations, along with the deviations between models and "as built" are described.