Course Details

Concrete Bridges 1

Academic Year 2025/26

BLA011 course is part of 1 study plan

​ BPC-SI / K Summer Semester 4th year

Course Guarantor

doc. Ing. Radim Nečas, Ph.D.

Institute

Institute of Concrete and Masonry Structures

Language of instruction

Czech

Credits

5 credits

Semester

summer

Forms and criteria of assessment

course-unit credit and examination

Offered to foreign students

Not to offer

Course on BUT site

https://www.vut.cz/en/students/courses/detail/289802

Lecture

13 weeks, 2 hours/week, elective

Syllabus

  • 1. Introduction. Development of bridge engineering. Basic definitions. Type of bridges. Essential parts of bridges. Spatial arrangement.
  • 2. Loads. Materials for bridges construction and their properties. Specifications for design of bridges and load-bearing structures.
  • 3. Stone, masonry and plain concrete bridges. Culverts – types, loading, dimensioning.
  • 4. Slab bridges – structural arrangement, static action.
  • 5. Vertical, skew and irregular slabs. Accurate and approximate methods of slab calculation. Expansion action.
  • 6. Slabs from prestressed concrete assembled from precast members – reinforcement, prestressing, calculation methods.
  • 7. Principles of general types of cast in place girder bridges design.
  • 8. Principles of design of general types of girder bridges from precast members.
  • 9. Accessories of road and railway bridges. Waterproofing. Pavements and cornices. Railings and safety barriers.
  • 10. Expansion joinst. Drainage. Steel, concrete, elastomer and combined bearings.
  • 11. Substructure – abutments, wing walls and intermediate supports. Waterproofing and wearing surface. Support threshold. Construction work behind abutment.

Exercise

13 weeks, 2 hours/week, compulsory

Syllabus

  • 1. Reinforced concrete bridge: Design and review of load-bearing structure of a slab bridge, design of bridge, space arrangement, embedding into terrain, superstructure, supporting and equipment.
  • 2. Load (permanent and variable load – vertical moving load), calculation of internal forces using simplified method (method of interaction width), combination of internal forces.
  • 3. Dimensioning for ultimate limit state – material, covering and reinforcement design, analysis of bend and shear, design of transverse reinforcement, anchorage of reinforcement.
  • 4. Evaluation for serviceability limit state – stress and cracks limitation, displacement limitation.
  • 5. Drawings of layout and arrangement of reinforcement.
  • 6. Bridge substructure: Design and checking of support – load-bearing capacity, stability, cantilever wing.
  • 7. Bridge saet (bearing chair), breast wall.
  • 8. Structural members enabling expansion of load-bearing bridge structure. Calculation of expansions, design of members, adjustment of members for different temperatures.
  • 9. Bridge from longitudinal prestressed segments. Design, load, transversal interaction of girders, internal forces, dimensioning and reinforcing principles.
  • 10. Final correction.
  • 11. Design submission. Credit.