Maintenance – Page 2 – Stone Arch Bridges

Mortarless Bridge Maintenance: Part 1

A key concern when maintaining a mortarless stone arch bridges is how stones can be worked loose by vibration. There are ways to prevent this.

Stone arch bridges with very insufficient waterway often need a little more care and maintenance than a larger bridge to remain useful.

Scour aprons remain the most effective way to prevent undermining of a bridge structure by hindering the water from directly eroding the foundations.

While many historic stone arch bridges are too narrow by modern traffic standards, there are several viable ways to non-destructively widen them.

The weakest point of a stone arch bridge of limestone is the waterline masonry, for it is prone to disintegrating in water.

Wingwalls can be important to a stone arch bridge’s structural integrity. While easily damaged, numerous ways to repair or replace them exist.

Deteriorated stones in a stone arch bridge are almost inevitably a sign of water infiltrating into the structure and needs to be taken seriously.

There are several way to prevent scour, which is the worst enemy of stone arch bridges with shallow foundations as is common.

The amount of weight a stone arch bridge can handle is related to a variety of factors including span, arch thickness, condition and more.

While a distorted arch in a stone bridge is not always a problem, it often points to an underlying serious trouble elsewhere within the structure.