The paper presents an approximation method for the assessment of the load carrying capacity of masonry arch railway bridges. The method is a simple semi-empirical tool for the initial level assessment that is considered to serve as a first sieve and provides conservative values for the load-carrying capacity and permissible axle load of single-span arches.
The proposed method is based on results obtained by the RING 2.0 masonry arch bridge analysis software. The method uses a closed mathematical formula to calculate the carrying capacity and its input parameters can easily be determined by simple site inspections or using data from bridge files.
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