The railway bridge located in Homs, Syria, consisted of two simply-supported 16.5m beams. The pier is single cylindrical column, and the abutments were massive concrete, see fig (52). The bridge had suffered severe collision damage. The corner rebar (Dia. =32mm) was split, tearing the shear stirrups apart along its length, see fig (53) below.
My Role in the project (in Detail):
1) I carried out an extensive inspection of the damaged bridge, and estimated the damage effect on the structural integrity. This inspection included: visual inspection, filling out forms and performing nondestructive/destructive tests. These tests were extracting concrete cores and samples from reinforcement, as well as rebound hammer (Schmidt). I used the FHWA Coding Guide Method. All bridge components were assigned a grade (from 0 to 9) representing condition, then all parts of the bridge which had certain deteriorated elements were given a grade. Finally all the bridge was given a grade representing its overall condition, which refers to the type of maintenance activities would be needed, and the best time to do this maintenance.
2) I created 2D bar element model utilizing LUSAS software to create the model and analyze the bridge. I depended on “UIC Standards” to find out the exact resistance factor for each deteriorated section, as well as the rating and safety factors for the whole bridge.
3) The rehabilitation aimed at letting all sections of the bridge carry the trains for the next 25 years (according to the up-to-date UIC standards). I prepared the main items in the rehabilitation process, which included: Removal of deteriorated concrete, rebar replacement, crack injection, shotcrete, and fiber reinforced polymer (carbon FRP, as a plate for bending and sheets for shear). Secondary items were suggested as well, they were: vegetation removal, concrete pavement for the embankments, drainage system restoration, and some new parapet.
4) I held meetings with different assigned contractors and suppliers of some repair materials to get to know their state-of-the-art of: the material specifications, application procedures, methods of payments and the unit prices.
