PSI - Issue 78

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

ScienceDirect

Procedia Structural Integrity 78 (2026) 560–567

© 2025 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0) Peer-review under responsibility of XX ANIDIS Conference organizers Keywords: Prestressed reinforced concrete; post-tension bridge; degradation; Italian guidelines; degradation index; prioritization. Abstract Most existing Italian bridges, built since the 1960s with prestressed reinforced concrete, exhibit a state of degradation that has led to significant consequences on the operability of the road network, including total or partial collapses. Consequently, the Italian Guidelines for the assessment of existing bridges foresee the execution of inspections to assess the degradation states at specified time intervals. The large amount of data collected during the inspections can be useful not only to determine the risk associated with the bridge (Class of Attention, CoA), but also to evaluate proactive and immediate maintenance actions. Therefore, the paper aims to analyse the degradation of post-tensioned prestressed reinforced concrete beams belonging to a set of bridges in the Basilicata region (southern Italy). A degradation index is proposed and computed for every beam allowing for the comparison of the deterioration of spans, edge beams and internal ones, or bridges with each other. Subsequently, further analysis of these data is conducted to determine which defects are most frequent and to verify possible correlations among them, outlining the presence of cause-and-effect relationships. As a result, it emerges that the presence of deep defects, such as reinforcement corrosion, is well correlated with superficial defects due to poor water drainage systems. Furthermore, depending on the waterproofing conditions of the slabs, the usually more pronounced degradation of the edge beams can also affect the internal ones. These observations allow for the optimal selection of beams to be subjected to special inspections, as well as suggesting the execution of expeditious maintenance action. XX ANIDIS Conference Degradation phenomena in post-tensioned prestressed concrete beams: defect analysis of a set of existing bridges Giuseppe Santarsiero a , Valentina Picciano a, *, Angelo Masi a , Tatiana Troiano a a Department of Engineering, University of Basilicata, via dell'Ateneo Lucano 10, Potenza 85100, Italy

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +393203076305; fax: +0-000-000-0000 . E-mail address: valentina.picciano@unibas.it

2452-3216 © 2025 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0) Peer-review under responsibility of XX ANIDIS Conference organizers 10.1016/j.prostr.2025.12.072