Safety assessment of existing concrete slab bridges for shear capacity

Evaluating and upgrading concrete slab bridges is an important issue. A large part of the existing infrastructure has been built about 50 years ago and the design life has been reached or will be reached in the near future. Also traffic loads have increased significantly over the last 50 years. These structures need to be reassessed in order to find out whether the safety requirements are met. Not only for new structures but also for the existing stock the Eurocodes are starting point for the assessment of the safety. However, it would be uneconomical to require all existing buildings and civil engineering works like bridges to comply fully with these new codes and corresponding safety levels. The assessment of existing structures therefore differs from the design situation. This paper describes the main differences with respect to the relevant reliability requirements and develops a set of partial factors to be used in reassessment of the shear force capacity of existing bridges under traffic load. © 2011 Taylor & Francis Group, London