In some countries, collapse of bridges initiated the formal requirements for the inspection of highway bridges. Almost in all developed countries, the bridge management systems have been developed for cost-effective allocation of limited budgets for deteriorating bridges. Visual inspections are one of the most important parts of a bridge management system. On the other hand, many new and promising techniques for the non-destructive evaluation (NDE) of highway bridges have emerged in the past decades. NDT methods are costly and time consuming as well; since they cannot be used widely in bridge management systems. However, NDT methods can be used as verification of visual inspections in bridge management systems. This paper discusses visual inspections of 200 reinforced concrete bridges in Turkey and non-destructive testing applications performed on 10 bridges, which were most deficient. Penetration resistance, ultrasonic pulse velocity, rebar locating and reinforcement corrosion tests are performed on decks, piers and beams of reinforced concrete bridges and the results are compared with the results of visual inspections.

Abstract-Cable stayed bridges are one of the most advanced bridges ever built. This type of bridges geometrically is similar to suspension bridges, but their structural behaviors are so different. In the last decade for bridges with span length (500-1000 m), the cable stayed bridges have been more welcomed. In comparison with suspension bridges, the cable stayed bridges have advantages like the simple construction of foundations. In this paper, for a specific cable stayed bridge three different connection systems including radial, harp and fan are designed and modeled by finite-element software (ANSYS). Based on the results of static analysis of bridges, the elements which have the maximum internal forces are chosen. The influence lines of shear force, axial force of cables and bending moments of selected elements are drawn for three bridge types. The results indicate that, for bridges subjected to high concentrated loads, bridges with radial and fan cables have better structural performance and for bridges subjected to high distributed loads, bridges with harp cables have better performance than the others.Index Terms-Cable-stayed bridge, influence line, ANSYS