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Many bridges in Slovakia are reaching their designed life span these days. Due to frequent errors during the construction of those bridges as well as bad maintenance, steel-concrete bridges are now in a critical state and urgent repairs of those structures are needed. In this article progressive methods of retrofitting existing concrete bridges are shown. In the presented method, the original pillars and original bridge deck will remain in their place, and on the existing deck new composite, steel-concrete bridge deck with encased steel members of progressive shape will be created. This method brings significant cost reduction for such retrofitting and enables the application of increased loads on the bridge.

It is a common practice to construct new buildings in the close vicinity of existing buildings. New buildings require deep excavations, which cause non-uniform displacement of the ground, causing a negative impact on the safety and technical conditions of adjacent buildings, including masonry buildings. The fundamental condition to verify structural safety is the knowledge of impacts and the load-bearing capacity of non-strengthened or strengthened structures. Safety is provided via strengthening the structure against deformations related to the ground displacement or by reducing non-uniform displacements of the building structure. This paper focuses on strengthening the ground and underground parts of masonry buildings. It also describes general requirements for providing safety of buildings according to the standard Eurokode 0 and the simplified method for protecting building structures with the use of steel tie rods. Based on the design methods for masonry structures specified in Eurocode 6 and the know-how of the authors in the field of protecting buildings in mining areas, the original method was proposed to determine the required area of reinforcement in the form of steel rods. Also, the original methods were introduced to verify ULS for inclined walls primarily under vertical load and shearing of pillars between openings. In addition to these analytical methods, this paper also illustrates methods for strengthening the ground and underground parts of masonry buildings. Presented in this paper, original solutions used to determine the strengthening of masonry structures and original models used to verify ULS for deflected walls primarily under vertical load can be directly employed in the design practice. The standard criteria were applied and the effects of building deflections, which are not specified in Eurocode 6, were considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When designing the foundations of any building structure, it is important to know not only the load of the structure, but also the deformation characteristics of the subsoil. Their underestimation leads to incorrect design of the foundations or even to failures, the reparation of which requires considerable financial costs. The real values of the deformation soil properties gained from the geotechnical investigation often do not match the tabulated values used in the design. In this contribution, actual and tabular values of selected soil properties in the bedrock in the locality of Kosicka kotlina are compared. Simple buildings designed according to the 1st geotechnical category are in the described location predominantly based on Neogene clay of intermediate plasticity class F6 and less on clays class F8. These are soils sensitive to changes in their natural moisture – they swell when exposed to water, thus become unstable. It is therefore important to use the most accurate values in the calculation of the foundations. The analysis of 130 measured values confirmed that 52% of the all measured values are outside the indicative table data. The use of inaccurate input values can bring a risk and threat to safety, reliability and proper use of any construction. It is therefore necessary to carry out the appropriate geotechnical investigation of soils for all types of buildings.

The paper deals with the assessment of slope stability on the road II/595 near the village Zlatno before and after the landslide caused by floods in 2010. The calculation of factor of safety was made using GEO 5 software. For proposal comprehensive assessment and possible remedial work is necessary to know the geological conditions and choose the appropriate method for assessing slope stability. The critical factors of safety have been determined by Petterson, Bishop and Sarma Methods. After finding the most unfavorable slip surface a proposal of remediation measures has been made. The paper presents various solutions to ensure slope stability of the road. The most appropriate remedial action is Variant III - reinforced slope due to its greater factor of safety.

Many bridges in Slovakia are reaching their designed life span these days. Due to frequent errors during the construction of those bridges as well as bad maintenance, steel‐concrete bridges are now in a critical state and urgent repairs of those structures are needed. In this article progressive methods of retrofitting existing concrete bridges are shown. In the presented method, the original pillars and original bridge deck will remain in their place, and on the existing deck new composite, steel‐concrete bridge deck with encased steel members of progressive shape will be created. This method brings significant cost reduction for such retrofitting and enables the application of increased loads on the bridge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During earthquakes, the liquid‐filled storage tank generates hydrodynamic pressures, in addition to hydrostatic pressure, on the solid domain of the tank. The theoretical background of hydrodynamic pressure analysis, as well as the numerical simulation of the liquid‐filled cylindrical steel reinforced concrete tank, is the focus of this paper. The finite element method (FEM) modeling, along with arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian and fluid–structure interactions formulation, is used for simulating the seismic response of cylindrical steel reinforced concrete liquid‐filled tank, fixed to the rigid foundation. The Loma Prieta accelerogram is utilized for recording the seismic ground motion. In the numerical study, two states are observed: (1) static condition where only hydrostatic pressure acts and (2) seismic excitation where hydrodynamic pressure occurs. When exposed to an earthquake situation, the tank liquid gives the total pressure of the liquid domain. The dynamic analysis considers the pressure response of the liquid domain, as well as the stress response of the solid domain of the coupled system, that is, liquid‐filled cylindrical steel reinforced concrete tank. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]