PSI - Issue 44

Dora Foti et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 44 (2023) 1506–1513 D. Foti et al./ Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2022) 000 – 000

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The town stands at 118 m a.s.l. and it is crossed by the Lamaja valley of the Majne or Tiflis stream on the southern, southeastern side. The lama rises in the Ruvo di Puglia area, at a height of 410 a.s.l., stretching for more than 37 km, northeast of Mariotto and Paolombaio, and brushing the areas of Pozzo di Cupo, S. Lorenzo, Misciano and S. Angelo. It flows into the Adriatic Sea north of Bari, in the locality of Fesca; from here the name Lama Balice derives. The bridge was designed by architect Luigi Castellucci, who replaced a previous bridge dating back to 1530 (Figure 2). This replacement became necessary after the tremendous flood of the 11 th October 1846, which damaged both the Carmine and Santa Teresa bridges. Ten days later, the local government appointed architect Castellucci to oversee the restoring of public structures damaged by the flood. He restored the municipal sewers and designed new bridges for Santa Teresa and Carmine valleys. In particular, the design of the new bridge with reports and drawings was presented four months later.

Fig. 2. Drawings of the Santa Teresa bridge (source Bitonto Municipal Library)

The work was completed in the short span of two years (1847-1849). The new structure is still intact after one hundred and fifty years (withstanding the successive great floods of 1910 and the catastrophic flood of 1954) on the axis of the San Domenico Road (Ambrosi Street). It is made of white limestone, and it presents a flat roadway with three large arches, resting on obliquely placed piers, oriented according to the flow of the water, so as to oppose less resistance to the current. In the inter-arches, the construction features two large circular holes, with a two meters diameter, that surmount the piers with a dual function of great technical value: to reduce the wall load on the pier below, and to work as a passage for the considerable pressure of heavy waters, especially during uncontainable floods (Figure 3).

Fig. 3. Principal façade of Santa Teresa Bridge of Bitonto