Bridges can be subjected to damaging environmental actions due to flooding and seismic hazards. Flood actions that result in scour are a leading cause of bridge failure, while seismic actions that induce lateral forces may lead to high ductility demand that exceeds pier capacity. When combined, seismic actions and scour can lead to effects that depend on the governing scour condition affecting a bridge. Loss of stiffness under scour can reduce the ductility capacity of a bridge but can also lead to an increase in flexibility that may reduce seismic inertial forces. Conversely, increased flexibility can lead to deck collapse due to support loss, so there exists some uncertainty about the combined effect of both phenomena. A necessary step towards the performance assessment of bridges under flooding and seismic actions is to calibrate numerical models that can reproduce structural responses under different actions. A further step is verifying the achievement of performance goals defined by codes. Structural health monitoring (SHM) techniques allow the computation of performance parameters that are useful for calibrating numerical models and performing direct checks of performance goal compliance. In this paper, various strategies employed to monitor bridge health against scour and seismic actions are discussed, with a particular focus on vibration-based damage identification methods.

One of the major causes of ecological and environmental problems comes from the enormous number of discarded waste tires, which is directly connected to the exponential growth of the world’s population. In this paper, previous works carried out on the effects of partial or full replacement of aggregate in concrete with waste rubber on some properties of concrete were investigated. A database containing 457 mixtures with partial or full replacement of natural aggregate with waste rubber in concrete provided by different researchers was formed. This database served as the basis for investigating the influence of partial or full replacement of natural aggregate with waste rubber in concrete on compressive strength. With the aid of the database, the possibility of achieving reliable prediction of the compressive strength of concrete with tire rubber is explored using neural network modelling.

After a long period of no excessive ground shaking in Croatia and the region of ex-Yugoslavia, an earthquake that woke up the entire region was the one that shook Croatia on 22 March 2020. More than 25,000 buildings were severely damaged. A process of reconstruction and strengthening of existing damaged buildings is underway. This paper presents proposed strengthening measures to be conducted on a cultural-historical building located in the city of Zagreb, which is under protection and located in zone A. After a detailed visual inspection and on-site experimental investigations, modeling of the existing and strengthened structure was performed in 3Muri. It is an old unreinforced masonry building typical not only for this region but for relevant parts of Europe (north, central, and east). The aim was to strengthen the building to Level 3 while respecting the ICOMOS recommendations and Venice Charter. Some non-completely conservative concessions had to be made, to fully retrofit the building as requested. The structural strengthening consisted of a series of organic interventions relying on—in the weakest direction—a new steel frame, new steel-ring frames, and FRCM materials, besides fillings the cracks. Such intervention resulted in increasing the ultimate load in the X and Y directions, respectively, more than 650 and 175% with reference to the unstrengthened structure. Good consistency was obtained between the numerical modeling, visual inspection, and on-site testing.