Integral abutment bridges are becoming popular in Europe, mainly due to long term reduced maintenance costs. The lack of bearings and expansion joints means that the consumables are eliminated ensuring a longer life span of the structure and minimizing the need of human intervention. Most integral bridges usually have small or middle lengths, but in the last years longer bridges are being built. Special attention should be given to the soil-abutment interaction, as the bridge lengthens and shortens during the day and during the year, due to temperature differences and loading. Therefore the soil structure should accommodate the cyclic movements of the abutment and avoid settlements and cracks. Transition slabs are also key elements and targeted design can improve the behavior of the bridge. In the past years several integral bridges were built in Romania. The paper presents examples with bridges from the Romanian Motorway system, addressing the specific needs and adopted solutions in regard to their lengths.

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The paper presents the damage under time dependent actions, fatigue, creep, corrosion for a railway bridge and a highway bridge. The first one is situated on the IV Pan-European Corridor, which crosses the Romanian territory. Although recently rebuilt, in the end of 80s, the bridge’s superstructure, made of decks with twin plain web girders, was in an unsatisfactory condition - loss of load bearing capacity and missing structural parts (strong corrosion and cracks). After the stress analysis and the fatigue verifications based on the Wöhler concept which were made in relation with the prescriptions of the Romanian standard SR 1911-1998, Swiss code 161 & SBB Richtlinie 2002 and the German code DS 805-2002, a life prediction analysis based on fracture mechanics principles was performed in order to evaluate the remaining fatigue life for this structure for the new traffic UIC conditions; in conclusion, the superstructure should be replaced. The highway bridge is the only crossing possibility over the Bistriţa River, parish Frânceşti, being an important element for the road infrastructure in the area. The current bridge was meant to be a temporary structure, but due to economic difficulties it wasn’t replaced. It does assure the clearance and safety according to the standards. Based on the technical situation of the existing bridge the replacement of this structure is a necessity. Taking into consideration the need of a simple technology, the limited construction height and a very short erection time, it leads in both cases to the necessity of a modular system with low costs. In this area of application the VFT-WIB® solution with its roots in the classical WIB composite structure was developed.

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