| dc.description.abstract | SUMMARY
Older structures, whether used and interacted with directly by human beings or not, may have need of review considering the structures’ continued use with modern activity. Relevant information about the given structure’s details and design use may be lost or buried in archives, especially those built long before digitalization. How they were constructed might also not be obvious anyway, as the standards for record keeping and the methods for material production may not have been the same as today or sufficient to deliver to the next generations of engineers all the useful information about the structure in question. The given structure’s specifications may thus be in danger of not standing the test of time much longer and closer inspection may be warranted, if only to discover the exact relevant information that will allow a more certain and accurate assessment of the future of the structure.
The structure in question here was built in the 1980s by standards produced in the 1970s. The structure is a concrete railroad bridge located close to Lerkendal Stadium and NTNU campus Gløshaugen in Trondheim, Norway. For the purposes of this bachelor’s thesis the focus has been on evaluating capacity accounting for the vertical loads imposed on the structure from railroad traffic.
The analysis is done using the UIC Load Model 71, as this is the standard for any Norwegian railway design intended for general and common use. Heavier and lighter traffic than normal, and traffic on railway bridges constructed with more complex beam design, are usually considered along side that represented by Load Model 71 but they have not been considered here and lay outside the scope of this bachelor’s thesis. The analysis has involved Eurocode standards, Statens Vegvesen’s Vegnormal N400 Bruprosjektering 2023, and Bane NOR Teknisk Regelverk, versjon 1, 2023. Additionally involved was use of the computer program Fokus Konstruksjon 2023 and material from NTNU considered relevant.
In terms of structural elements the project has been limited to assess the bridge’s superstructure. In terms of limit states the project has focused on capacity requirements for serviceability limit state and ultimate limit state. | |