CFRP strengthening of a railway concrete trough bridge – a case study

Abstract

This paper presents an upgrading and monitoring of a Swedish concrete railway bridge. The methods used for the upgrading as well as for the monitoring are innovative and new. Carbon fibre tubes are inserted in holes in the bridge deck, drilled in the transverse direction of the slab at a location ca. 40 mm from the top. Carbon fibre NSMR bars are bonded in transverse grooves in the soffit of the slab. Both methods are intended to increase the transverse bending moment capacity of the troughs' bottom slab in the ultimate limit state. Monitoring is performed to verify the effectiveness of the strengthening and to understand the behaviour of the bridge. However, for obvious reasons, monitoring is only carried out in the SLS (service limit state). Even though only marginal effects of strengthening could be recorded in the SLS, both the strengthening and monitoring were considered successful at a cost of approximately 8% of the total cost of a new bridge replacement.