To determine how to strengthen a stone arch bridge, it helps to understand how it behaves when overloaded in order to understand the forces at play.
Category Archives: Maintenance
Mortarless Bridge Maintenance: Part 2
Mortarless stone arch bridges need extra care to ensure they are not overwhelmed by foliage and that friction between stones remains high.
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.
Care of Stone Arch Bridges With Insufficient Waterway
Stone arch bridges with very insufficient waterway often need a little more care and maintenance than a larger bridge to remain useful.
Scour Aprons: Simple and Effective Protection for Stone Bridges
Scour aprons remain the most effective way to prevent undermining of a bridge structure by hindering the water from directly eroding the foundations.
Widening a Stone Arch Bridge
While many historic stone arch bridges are too narrow by modern traffic standards, there are several viable ways to non-destructively widen them.
Waterline Deterioration: The Achilles Heel of Limestone Bridges
The weakest point of a stone arch bridge of limestone is the waterline masonry, for it is prone to disintegrating in water.
Wing Walls: Importance and Repair
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 Bridge
Deteriorated stones in a stone arch bridge are almost inevitably a sign of water infiltrating into the structure and needs to be taken seriously.
3 Ways to Prevent Scour
There are several way to prevent scour, which is the worst enemy of stone arch bridges with shallow foundations as is common.