Bridge Live Load Models in US and Europe

Overloaded vehicular traffic on bridges can cause premature damage such as fatigue cracking and accelerated aging and it can consequently reduce the service life. It is also an important part of any assessment of bridge safety at the ultimate limit state. Available Weigh-In-Motion (WIM) data provides an excellent source to study the effect of traffic loads on bridge structures. The objective of this study is to compare various types of traffic load and their effects on bridges in the United States and Europe. The database considered in this study includes WIM measurements from 20 U.S. states with 92 million records and 5 European countries (Poland, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Slovenia and Slovakia) with 2 million vehicles. The raw data is filtered to eliminate systematic errors and other questionable records. The filtering criteria used to process WIM data in the U.S. and Europe are compared.