Condition Assessment of Reinforced Concrete Bridges In Albania

Road bridges represent a large financial investment and provide an essential service to the community and economy of a country. Being such important structures, they are regularly inspected, monitored and assessed. Concrete bridges in Albania have been constructed with different standards, in different periods and exposed to traffic loads which have rapidly increased during the last two decades. This study is an attempt to draw a general picture of the condition of Albanian bridges, based on the visual inspection of 104 bridges with a total length of 7271.6 m, along 263 km road in different parts of the country. The selected bridges pertain to the road network with the heaviest traffic volume within the country. This network also contains bridges constructed in all the various construction time periods of Albania. The investigations focuses on the general physical state of the bridges in this developing country.