BELFA load application vehicle -measurement and loading techniques for the structural evaluation of bridges and sewers

To demolish and rebuild road bridges that have been found by calculation to be unable to support heavy loads consumes resources and disrupts traffic.

To demolish and rebuild road bridges that have been found by calculation to be unable to support heavy loads consumes resources and disrupts traffic. With the aim of economizing on materials, and in order to rationally perform loading experiments using the experimental load-bearing method known as EXTRA on bridge structures and sewers, a group of researchers at the Universities of Bremen (team leaders), TU Dresden, HTWK Leipzig and the Bauhaus University of Weimar worked with the Eggers group and other companies to develop a special vehicle that could be used in flexible ways to apply loads to structures. Known as BELFA, its name is an acronym from the German word for this type of vehicle (”Belastungsfahrzeug”).