Risk To Old Bridges Due To Ship Impact On German Inland Waterways

The following paper describes the investigation of two old bridges over inland waterways in Germany under a possible ship impact. Both the numbers of ship impacts against bridges in Germany and the structural description of the bridges has been intensively dealt with. The investigation is based on probabilistic calculations to take into consideration the uncertainty of a possible impact and the uncertainty of material parameters of the old bridges. The results are presented in terms of failure probability for the original bridges and additional strengthening measures and also in terms of risk.