Full-scale testing to failure of a steel truss railway bridge

Abstract

Significant resources have been invested in maintaining existing infrastructure. Many structures are becoming old, do not meet current requirements, or are reaching the end of their life cycle. It is not feasible or sustainable to replace all of those that may be deemed obsolete; however, often their specified capacities are very conservative. So there is an urgent need to obtain more robust knowledge of their true status. This paper describes a unique project, in which a 33 m long steel truss railway bridge (over the Åby River) was tested to failure. The findings can be used to identify optimal solutions for other bridges of the same design that are still in use, notably the bridge over Rautasjokk (a river in Sweden). These two bridges were tested in three stages. This paper focuses on the second stage, wherein Åby Bridge was subjected to static full-scale testing to failure, by pulling it downwards. The global failure mode consisted of buckling of the top chord with yielding of the steel starting at a total load of 8 MN and the peak load being reached at around 11 MN, corresponding to a load approximately four to five times higher than the characteristic design load.