THE INFLUENCE OF THE RATIO OF THE ELASTIC MODULUS OF MASONRY MATERIALS TO FILLED MATERIALS ON THE RETROFITTING OF EXTERNALLY REINFORCED ARCH MASONRY BRIDGES

Masonry arch bridges are among important and old bridges in the Iranian railway network. Retrotting and renovation of these bridges are important, not only due to their vital role in the national railway network, but also as most of them are highly valued from an architectural as well as cultural and historical point of view. In this paper, an external reinforcing method for strengthening masonry arch bridges is presented and particularly examined for Gha ankooh Bridge, located at kilometer 427 of the Tehran -Tabriz railway. A 3D nite element model of the bridge developed using SAP2000-v14 software. Using this model the proper retrotting plan is determined. In addition the in uence of the ratio of the elastic modulus of masonry materials to lled materials on the internal stresses over the bridge body is investigated. The results shows that by increasing this ratio, the stresses increased over the external surface of the arch and as a results a proper retrotting scheme can be achieved using lesser materials and lower costs.