A fleet of trucks have put one of southeastern Europe’s tallest bridges to the test.

Loaded trucks drive in convoy across Pocitelj Bridge to test whether it behaves in accordance with the design conditions. Credit: IRD

The Faculty of Civil Engineering, Architecture and Geodesy at the University of Mostar co-ordinated load testing of Pocitelj Bridge in Hercegovina, The bridge, a 945m prestressed concrete frame structure with seven spans, carries four lanes of highway in a curve across the Neretva River, past the old town of Pocitelj. It is part of Corridor Vc in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The tallest of its six pillars is more than 100m.

The test involved 12 40-tonne trucks being placed at target points on the bridge. According to the bridge project’s chief engineer Ismet Hajduk of JP Autoceste: “The test results showed that the bridge behaves in accordance with the design conditions. The deflections and the residual deformations are within the designed limits, as well as the behaviour of the structure due to the dynamic loading of the bridge.”

The project is supervised by IRD Engineering.