THEORETICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL EXAMINATION PERFORMED DURING THE LATEST REPAIRING OF THE CHAIN BRIDGE

All the bridges in Budapest over the Danube were blown up in 1945. With the recreation of the Erzsebet bridge in 1964, the rebuilding of the bridges built before 1945 was accomplished with reuse in part of the original el­ ements of the old bridges. The reconstruction was started with the half­ provisional Kossuth bridge which was later dismounted. The process went on with the reconstruction of the Szabadsag bridge (the former Ferenc J6zsefbridge) in 1946. The other bridges followed each other in succession: rebuilding of the Margit bridge, the built of the half-wide Arpad bridge, the rebuilt of the Pet8fi bridge and in honour of the 100 year anniversary of its original construction the Szechenyi Chain Bridge was reopened in 1949. During the time after the post-war reconstruction of the Danube bridges, the intensity of traffic was multiplied due to the magnitude of the applied load and the number of vehicles. The influence of the developed loading was augmented by the salting of roadways, started in 1964. Due to this fact and to the catastrophe of the Reichsbriicke in Vienna in 1976, i;he of the bridges over the Danube in Budapest was initiated,