Experiences with using of loading tests and the “design assisted by testing” method for the determination and verification of structural members and details

Abstract

This paper describes experiences with use of different types of experiments (i.e. loading tests) as well as with use of socalled “Design assisted by testing” method given in the standard “Eurocode 1”. Both these mentioned ways are useful in case of a determination and verification of important design parameters, material properties and load-carrying capacities (in case of different types of stresses, used materials or geometric configurations of designed constructions or their elements and details). In this area, during recent years, large number of miscellaneous loading tests have been performed at the authors’ workplace. Therefore, all presented information and all described experiment results in this article are directly based on solved experimental (and theoretical) research programs carried out at Institute of Metal and Timber Structures at the Faculty of Civil Engineering at Brno University of Technology in cooperation with research institutes and companies in the Czech Republic. Most of all research projects were focused on the load-carrying capacity determination as well as on the knowledge about an actual behaviour and failure mechanisms of steel and steel-concrete structural members and details (recently of members made of FRP or GFRP composite, too), usually in case of verification of either existing or newly designed building or bridge structures.