„In 2023, the investments into repairs and maintenance of bridges accounted for 14 million EUR in total. This year, we have allocated almost 22,5 million EUR for this purpose,“ said Mr. Rastislav Droppa, the Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors and Operations Section Director of Národná diaľničná spoločnosť, a.s. He also added that safe and reliable bridges are a key attribute of proper road infrastructure operation.
Extensive repairs of bridges
NDS is currently managing construction works consisting of a comprehensive repair of the bridges near Trnava at the intersection of D1 motorway and R1 expressway, of the bridge below the Pustý hrad Castle in central Slovakia, and a bridge on D1 in Podbanské (Liptov region). A multi-million investment is allocated for the reconstruction of the bridge in Váhovce on the R1 expressway in Galanta, where the service life of the bridge is being extended and the load capacity of the bridge structure is being increased to include heavy-load traffic as well. Some time ago, the repair of the bridge on the D1 motorway in Hlohovec was commenced, and in mid-September, works will be done on the drainage of the motorway bridge in Podtureň.
Functioning of bridge closures
Besides bridge repairs and reconstructions, the bridge closures are being replaced with closures minimizing the noise of passing vehicles. In 2024, NDS plans to replace bridge closures on 17 bridges in total. Bridge closures are used to bridge the expansion joint between the load-bearing structure and the bridge abutment, between two parts of the superstructures of the bridge. Currently, there are 874 bridges being managed by NDS, the majority of the bridges consist of a left and a right bridge, and some bridges have more bridge closures, bringing the total number of closures to almost 2250.
Prevention first
All the bridges managed by NDS are checked regularly. Routine bridge inspections are carried out at least once a year. Depending on the structure of the bridge, main bridge inspections are carried out every two, four, or six years. Routine inspections mainly involve a visual inspection of visible cracks, deformations or defects visible to the naked eye. The main inspections are more detailed, checking also the areas that are difficult to reach. They consist of a physical inspection of every structural part of the bridge structure and the identified defects are being recorded.
Based on the results of these inspections, we plan and carry out the maintenance and repairs of individual bridge structures to ensure that they are functioning reliably.
