Evaluation steps
Pathology and assessment of existing bridges

As a general rule, there are two successive phases in the evaluation of a project:

• preliminary diagnosis ;

• recalculation.

  According to terminology recognized by international associations and used in all Eurocodes, reliability covers both the structure's serviceability and its structural safety.

  In terms of supporting calculations, serviceability is related to serviceability limit states, while structural safety is related to ultimate limit states (figure 1 ).