<p>Many years of experience of design and maintenance of bridges shows that movement structures are among the more expensive as far as maintenance costs are concerned. These structures are the so-called mechanical ones and require regular maintenance from time to time, or part or full replacement.</p> <p>The design philosophy should therefore be based on:</p> <ul> <li>as few as possible movement structures</li> <li>long durability</li> <li>easy to maintain and replace</li> </ul> <p>This paper describes:</p> <p>Typical movement structures like expansion joints, bearings, hydraulic and mechanical dampers and cable support arrangements that allow movements.</p> <p>General arrangements of the articulation systems of some major bridges relating to the above mentioned design philosophies.</p> <p>Installation, operation and maintenance experiences.</p> <p>Special features in connection with replacement of the Teflon sliding disks in spherical bearings after 22 years of use.</p> <p>Experience from replacement of a 35-year-old roller shutter expansion joint with a new water tight modular type on a suspension bridge.</p> <p>Challenges in the future.</p>

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One of the main cables on The New Little Belt Bridge was in the summer 2013 exposed by direct fire from a burning truck parked right beside its lowest point. The fire was fully defeated within 30 minutes but the fire exposure had lasted for around 45 minutes. The main cable capacity was luckily not violated by the heating but one suspender had to be replaced. Many other repair works, on bridge elements with minor or no impact on the structural integrity of the bridge, was carried out in the coming weeks and it took in total 4 month before the traffic on the bridge was fully restored, except for special heavy transports. The owner of the bridge, The Danish Road Directorate, has based on the experiences from the fire, started up a revision of the existing risk analyses study in order to support a decision on possible future actions in order to reduce the risk for fire related damages. For the responsible engineers it is recommended to be prepared with information and knowledge that makes it possible to carry out immediate assessment of the remaining structural integrity of the bridge.