Historical stone arch bridges under horizontal debris flow impact

摘要

Many historical arch bridges are situated in Mountain regions. Such historical bridges may be exposed to several natural hazards such as flash floods with dead wood and debris flows. For example, in the year 2000 a heavy debris flow destroyed an arch bridge in Log Pod Mangartom, Slovenia and only recently, in September 2008 an arch bridge was overflowed by a debris flow. A new launched research project at the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna tries to combine advanced numerical models of debris flows with advanced models of historical masonry arch bridges under horizontal loads. The research project starts with separate finite element modelling of different structural elements of arch bridges such as spandrel walls, the arch itself, roadway slabs, pavements and foundations under single and distributed horizontal loads. Furthermore miniaturized tests are planned to investigate the behaviour of the overall bridge under debris flow impacts. The results will be used to combine the modelling of the different structural elements considering the interaction during a horizontal loading. Furthermore this bridge model will then be combined with debris flow simulation. Also earlier works considering horizontal ship impacts against historical arch bridges will be used control. The paper will present latest research results.