A Numerical Strategy for the Collapse Analysis of Masonry Bridges Applied to the Prestwood Case Study

Masonry arch bridges constitute a fundamental part of the European road network. Since many of these bridges are relatively old but still in service, a reliable assessment of their load-carrying capacity is essential to understand whether they can guarantee an adequate structural performance with respect to current traffic loads. For this purpose, research has focused on the development of computational modelling approaches capable of providing realistic simulations of the structural and collapse behaviour of this kind of structures. This paper aims to investigate the application of numerical analysis based on the Applied Element Method (AEM) to masonry arch bridges. The Prestwood Bridge was chosen as the benchmark case study, because of the availability of experimental data from a destructive test and results from numerous studies in which numerical models of the bridge have been developed using different strategies. The results showed consistency with those obtained by other numerical methods and highlighted the ability of the Applied Element Method to provide not only an accurate estimate of the collapse load but also a good prediction of the actual collapse mechanism occurred during the experimental test.