Open Access

The through-life management of our constantly ageing infrastructure is a basic requirement in order to ensure their structural safety and serviceability. Each structure experiences deterioration processes with time leading to a decrease of structural safety and serviceability. The design of new structures considers the expected deterioration for a defined period, the design service life. However, a frequent survey of structural safety controlling structural condition should be mandatory and a maintenance plan should be an integral part of the design. In addition, many structures have exceeded their design service life already or are very close to it leading to an increasing demand for condition assessment. On the one hand, assumptions made during design are not valid any more due to change of the loads, e.g., increasing traffic loads in terms of number and weights. On the other hand, design codes evolved over time in such a way that existing structures do not comply with today’s standards. In all these cases, the through-life management is an important tool to maintain the accessibility of existing structures with known reliability. In line with the new Model Code for Concrete Structures, which includes guidance for both – design of new structures and assessment of existing structures, the Task Group 3.3 focused on the compilation of a state-of-the-art guideline for the through-life management of existing concrete structures, including: Data acquisition by testing and monitoring techniques; Condition assessment for the evaluation of existing structures; Performance prediction using advanced methods; Decision-making procedures to perform a complete assessment of existing structure. The overall objective of the through-life management is the assessment of the current condition and the estimation of the remaining service life under consideration of all boundary conditions.

Two years ago, the East Prussian and the Low-Silesian Railway lines celebrated their 160th anniversaries. The history of both first railway connections in the Eastern railway network development in the whole region in the 19th century is presented together with information about the railway between Berlin and Wroclaw. Special attention is paid to the railway bridges built in this period. The first large iron bridges and typical masonry arch structures are presented. Special attention is paid to masonry arches. The condition appraisal of existing masonry arches requires new developed technical methodologies, effective tools and procedures for the description of the bridges current state and function. Their current technical condition as well as service-ability is described.

2010 feierte die niederschlesische Stadt Wrocław den 100.Geburtstag der Grunwaldzki-Brücke, die 1910 als Kaiser-brücke im damaligen Breslau über die Oder gebaut wurde. Der 100. Geburtstag der Grunwaldzki-Brücke war ein will-kommener Anlass für die Professoren Jan Biliszczuk und Józef Rabiega der Technischen Universität Wrocław (früher: Breslau) zusammen mit dem Verleger Leszek Budych, eine zweisprachige Monografie über das Bauwerk auf Polnisch und – die ehemaligen Erbauer würdigend – auch auf Deutsch, herauszugeben. Das Buch beginnt mit einem Rückblick auf die Entwicklung von Hängebrücken, beschreibt die durchgeführten Erhaltungsmaßnahmen und endet mit einer recht de-taillierten Darstellung der Zustandsbewertung unter Verwendung der ermittelten Versuchsdaten. Die Monografie erinnert insbesondere an die Geschichte des Brückenbaus im damals deutschen Breslau des 19. Jahrhunderts und insbesondere der Kaiserbrücke (heute: most Grunwaldzki).Im zweiten Teil beschreiben die Autoren Materialuntersuchungen und zahlreiche weitere Messungen unter laufen-dem Verkehr, die von den Mitarbeitern der Technischen Universität Wrocław mit dem Ziel des Brückenerhalts unter den enorm gestiegenen heutigen Anforderungen durch-geführt wurden. Während der Breslauer Brückentage 2010wurde die Monografie vorgestellt