PSI - Issue 84

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ScienceDirect

Procedia Structural Integrity 84 (2026) 882–889

III Fabre Conference: Existing Bridges, Viaducts, and Tunnels: Research, Innovation, and Applications From the safety assessment to extraordinary maintenance

interventions: the case study of La Botte bridge Antonella Cosentino a, *, Alessio Orazzini a , Cristiano Ristori a a Province of Pisa, Via Pietro Nenni, Pisa, 56124, Italy

© 2026 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 the scientific committee of the Conference Abstract The Italian guidelines for the risk management and classification, the safety evaluation and the monitoring of existing bridges defined timing of monitoring and interventions on existing structures, based on results of classification process and safety evaluations. The Province of Pisa, as well as continue the periodic inspection activity on the approximately 340 managed bridges, according to timing and methods indicated by the Guidelines depending on their Classes of Attention, is currently engaged in a significant number of structural maintenance interventions on bridges characterized by a high degradation level or with a lower safety level than requested by the technical standards. The latter include the bridge over the river Arno along the road SP 1 “Della Botte”, which was assumed as case study for specific research activities, carried out in cooperation with the Department of Civil and Industrial Engineering of the University of Pisa. The bridge was subjected to a static safety evaluation according to the Guidelines, being characterized by significant degradation phenomena and vulnerabilities that carry a high foundational and structural class of attention. Based on safety evaluation results, important extraordinary maintenance interventions were designed and completed today, thanks to specific ministerial fundings. The extraordinary maintenance interventions had also given the occasion to implement a continuous monitoring system on the bridge, for the real time control in its service conditions. This paper describes the assessment process applied over time to the La Botte bridge and the maintenance interventions realized to meet regulatory requirements, highlighting peculiarities, the critical issues emerged during the executive phases and the actual applicability of standards indications to the social context and of temporal, human and economic resources available to the Province.

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +39-3395859777 E-mail address: a.cosentino@provincia.pisa.it

2452-3216 © 2026 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 the scientific committee of the Conference 10.1016/j.prostr.2026.06.113