Guidelines for Railway Bridges

The work has been carried out by an UIC project team from 10 countries and led by Mr Pär Olofsson from Banverket. The guideline summarises the knowledge gained by railway administrations from measuring and predicting the dynamic performance of both new and existing bridges. By utilising this knowledge, the engineer is able to make improved predictions of load effects in the structure prior to permitting new traffic and/or increased speeds. This guideline also provides a consistent technical basis for dynamic measurements and the interpretation of results. The quality of the results will also be assured. This will enable maxim benefit to be made from dynamic measurements as it will enable the engineer to take into account the results of measurements on similar structures when estimating key parameters. The guideline is also a recommendation on how to identify critical aspects of the dynamic behaviour of a railway bridge and how measurement of key dynamic parameters and total dynamic should be carried out with sufficient accuracy. The guideline finally gives advice how to incorporate the correlated results in the recalculation of the structure when evaluating structural safety.