Experimental analysis of the railway truss bridge using modern methods

Experimental analyses of civil engineering structures have been carried out for decades. While in the past, mainly static load tests of new structures were performed, a few severe accidents with fatal results caused a lot of emphasis to be given to monitoring existing structures recently. The need for continuous or periodical evaluation of static or dynamic behaviour of structures in operation led to a good progress in the development of modern methods for experimental analysis. The paper deals with one of the modern methods of experimental analysis – the DIC method. Possible application of the DIC method was verified by an experimental analysis of a railway truss bridge in Rataje nad Sázavou. The experiment was divided into two stages. During the experiment, deflections of the bridge measured by LVDT sensors and the DIC method were compared. Technological problems of the DIC method were found in the first stage. One of the problems was related to stability of the camera tripod. A solution was proposed and verified during the second stage.