Salt and Wind Attack on Large Adriatic Bridges

The paper delivers details on salt and wind attack on large Adriatic Bridges, and focuses on damage tha resulted from this attack as well as methods, techniques and feasibility of structural repair. Large Adriatic Bridges denotes a group of six large reinforced concrete arch bridges located on Croatian Adriatic cost. The most famous among these is the Krk Bridge, the largest spanning conventional reinforced concrete arch in the world even 25 years after its completion.The bridges are exposed to harsh environmental conditions with frequent strong winds, most natably Bora winds. High Bora winds lead to major traffic disruption, but are also adversely affecting long term performance of structures set in meritime environment. The winds spray sea-salt on the exposed structural members, thus speeding up deterioration in concrete structure due to chloride corrosion. Many repairs were performed on the majority of Adriatic Bridges over the years. Repair works have proved to be not only expensive but also technically very demanding engineering tasks.