Maintenance and Repair of Large Adriatic Bridges

The paper discusses design, construction, maintenance and repair of six large reinforced concrete arch bridges at Adriatic coast in Croatia: Sibenik bridge, Pag bridge, Krk bridges (Krk I and Krk II bridges), Maslenica bridge and Skradin bridge over Krka river canyon. Croatian coastal area is an extremely harsh environment with frequent strong winds that often lead to closure of bridges and roads to traffic and significantly contribute to rapid degradation of exposed structures. High maintenance costs of older bridges - Sibenik, Pag and Krk bridges, indicate that all new bridges and especially those located in aggressive maritime environment should be designed taking into account the durability criteria and executed under adequate quality assurance with carefully elaborated structural concept and connection detailing, as was the case with Maslenica highway bridge and Skradin bridge.