Vehicle vibrations on bridge with elastic expansion joints

Great attention should be paid to the construction of transportation structures, likes bridges and viaducts because the life cycle of the traffic route depends on it. If the need for frequent rehabilitation works arises it cause traffic stoppages, which are very unpleasant especially on highly frequented routes. Taking bridges in consideration, expansion joints are the structural parts which require frequent maintenance. Selection of transitional expansion joints depends on the type of the bridge structure, but very often as well on the technology at the contractor’s disposal. In the process of building-in the expansion joints, it is very important to achieve the alignment with the road surface, otherwise impact points will appear under traffic. The road irregularity in expansion joint zone very often causes unpleasant vehicle vibrations. In the paper, measurements of vehicle vibrations while driving over transitional expansion joints, type ''Thorma-Joint'', were conducted on two structures “VUKOVINA II Bridge” and type "Silent-Joint" on ARENA Viaduct” in Zagreb (Croatia). Prior to automobile vibrations recording, measurements of the road surface roughness were performed. The presented method for quality evaluation of the works on expansion joints via vehicle vibrations represents a simple and quickly method opposed to the usual methods used in everyday engineering practice.