Reconstruction of the “Old Bridge to the Island” Across the Váh River in Trenčín

The paper describes the design of the reconstruction of the “Old Bridge to the Island” in Trenčín, which spans the river Váh in the area of Kočkovský channel. It is a road, reinforced concrete, three-span, girder bridge. The cross-section consists of three main girders of 1.55 m height, that increase to 2.4 meters in the support regions. The axial distance of the main girders is 2.8 meters. The total span of the bridge is 112.1 meters (35 + 42 + 35.1 m). In the ground plan the bridge is a skew one with a 79° angle. The vertical grade of the bridge is a polygonal curve (arch). The current width of the bridge is 5.0 meters with 1.0 m footways on both sides. The expansion of the “Ostrov (Island)” recreational zone requested an extension of this bridge and hence its extensive renovation. A part of the proposed solution is a strengthening of the structure by external pre-stressing strands, reinforcement of the structure to shear, widening of the carriageway to 6.0 m, construction of steel footways for pedestrians and cyclists, the exchange of bearings, an extensive renovation and widening of the abutments and re-profiling of all surfaces on the bridge. The proposed steel footway will be 3.08 m wide for the cyclists and 2.33 m for the pedestrians. These walkways will be directly connected to the supporting bridge structure and will extend the width of the bridge by almost a double. The steel footways itself will be anchored to the RC structure by a transverse pre-stress through reinforced concrete anchor blocks. All proposed solutions are designed with the requirement of maintaining the traffic on the bridge during the entire period of reconstruction.