New developments in steel and composite bridges

British standard for civil engineering

Advances in Civil Engineering, 2020

Steel-concrete composite bridges are used as an alternative to concrete bridges because of their ability to adapt their geometry to design constraints and the possibility of reusing some of the materials in the structure. In this review, we report the research carried out on the design, behavior, optimization, construction processes, maintenance, impact assessment, and decision-making techniques of composite bridges in order to arrive at a complete design approach. In addition to a qualitative analysis, a multivariate analysis is used to identify knowledge gaps related to bridge design and to detect trends in research. An additional objective is to make visible the gaps in the sustainable design of composite steel-concrete bridges, which allows us to focus on future research studies. e results of this work show how researchers have concentrated their studies on the preliminary design of bridges with a mainly economic approach, while at a global level, concern is directed towards the search for sustainable solutions. It is found that life cycle impact assessment and decision-making strategies allow bridge managers to improve decision-making, particularly at the end of the life cycle of composite bridges.

International Conference on Road and Rail Infrastructure

Bridges have evolved over time from the simplest forms made from materials found in nature – wood and stone - to the complex shapes of today, made of concrete, steel, steel-concrete, and composite materials. If in the past the large dimensions of an obstacle impeded building a bridge, today this problem can be solved by choosing suitable materials, an advantageous structural system, and an erection method that favors the chosen solutions. The composite superstructures made of steel-concrete have started to be used more often in the construction of bridges due to their advantages. The scope of this paper is to analyze the evolution of road bridges with steel-concrete composite superstructure. There can be distinguished mainly 4 stages in the evolution of these types of structures. In the first two stages during 1850-1925 the connection between concrete and steel was achieved by the adhesion between the contact surfaces of the two materials. Starting with 1932 (stage III), a connectio...

Steel Construction, 2018

Bridges are of vital importance for the European infrastructure network. Due to their significance in the political economy, the requirement for sustainable, meaning highly advanced, cost-effective, environmentally friendly and long-lived structures is outstanding. Therefore steel composite road bridges were analysed in the Sustainable Steel-Composite Bridges in Built Environment RFCS project (SBRI) by means of a holistic approach combining Lifecycle Assessment, Lifecycle Costs and Lifecycle Performance analyses to promote steel in the bridge construction. The partners of the project were the

IABSE Congress New Delhi , 2023

Twenty years ago, in 2003, a European project was started to increase the sustainability of existing railway bridges. This paper summarises what was achieved and looks ahead. Nine Working Packages were organized: (1) Background material; (2) Guidance by stakeholders; (3) Condition Assessment and Inspection Guidelines; (4) Loads, Capacity and Resistance Guidelines; (5) Monitoring Guidelines; (6) Repair and Strengthening Guidelines; (7) Demonstration with Field testing of Bridges; (8) Demonstration on Monitoring on Bridges; and (9) Training and Dissemination Some of the main results (from 4 Guidelines and 47 Background documents) are highlighted and some experiences, conclusions and thoughts about the future are given. Hidden strengths and weaknesses are discussed, analyses and codes for assessment can be improved, new monitoring and strengthening methods are available and life length can be prolonged.

IABSE Symposium Report, 2009

Composite structures are often used in bridge engineering. In most cases steel girders are combined with a cast in place concrete slab, but composite systems with precast concrete girders are also widely built. Although often applied in everyday structures, composite structures require challenging design procedures due to the necessity of considering the difference in behaviour of the materials and providing full connection between the structural parts. These requirements are related to topics like properly considering the actual construction schedule in order to assign different loading components to the respective structural system. Further special needs arise in the simulation of certain loadings such as self weight of wet concrete or temperature differences between the different materials. A third major problem is related to correct simulation of long time behaviour redistributing stresses from the concrete slab to the girders and to dealing with pre-stressing in case of structures with pre-stressed concrete girders. Once deformations and internal forces have been correctly calculated there still remain several problems relating to result assessment and proof checks. Stress and strain distribution over the composite section is no longer linear, i.e. stress checks have usually to be done separately for the individual parts. Ultimate load checks however relate to the final composite section. Proof checks for the shear keys between the different parts complete the set of requirements. Consistent analysis procedures considering all these special problems have recently been developed and are presented herein. The solution allows for considering all required effects with sufficient accuracy in comprehensive manner and in accordance with generally accepted theories.

Proceedings of the Fourth International IABMAS Conference, Seoul, Korea, July 13-17 2008, 2008

Carrying traffic loads is not the only task of bridges today; other demands include doing it in a sustainable way and helping to reduce environmental pollution. This generates the call for new bridge shapes. Thanks to the high strength, low weight, low maintenance and other properties, composites may give a better answer to this call than conventional materials. Moreover, new shapes allow for a more efficient application of composites, lowering the construction costs and increasing the performances. So far, the shapes of composite bridges roughly follow the shapes of bridges in other materials, like steel. This approach is appropriate in the introduction stage of a new material. A good way to win customer’s confidence is to copy the familiar shapes and sections that proved to be suitable in other materials. Therefore we often see composite I-beams, channels, box girders, deck grids etc. that resemble steel or aluminum components. Now that both the confidence and the demands are growing, it is time to review this strategy and to ask which shapes are the most efficient and offer the best service in composite bridges. This paper gives a rough answer to this question.

Fatigue Assessment for a Composite Bridge in Steel Arches According to ABNT NBR Standard Requirements: 16694:2020 (Atena Editora), 2023

Bridge structures, when subjected to repeated action of mobile load, present stress variations in the structural elements and that under this stress condition can cause the phenomenon of fatigue, characterized by the appearance of cracks and subsequent propagation, which can lead to the collapse of the structure. The verification of resistance to fatigue in structural projects of road bridges in straight composite beams must be carried out according to the requirements of Annex A of the ABNT NBR 16694:2020 standard, which specifies the permissible limit of the stress variation range for categories of constructive details and for a number of request cycles. The present work aims to evaluate the fatigue of the structural elements of the superstructure of a composite bridge in metallic arches in order to meet the requirements presented in Annex A of the ABNT NBR 16694:2020 standard. The composite bridge in metallic arches studied here has a deck in composite straight beams and was designed to serve the water main system of the São Francisco River and is also used as a pedestrian walkway. Initially, a finite element model was elaborated for the composite bridge structure in steel arches. Next, loadings were established for the frequent combination of fatigue. The design stress variation range was determined from tensile stress results from finite element analysis. The fatigue evaluation for the structural elements of the composite bridge in metallic arches was only carried out for the regions of the weld fillet between the web of the spar beam profile and the vertical stiffener where the initiation and propagation of cracks in this region causes the failure of the flange tension and can lead to the collapse of the beam. Thus, the permissible range of voltage variation was established for the constructive detail of the welded connection in question and according to the representation indicated in Table A.1 of Annex A of the ABNT NBR 16694:2020 standard. In the end, it was confirmed that the range of design stress variation is lower than the admissible range of stress variation and thus the composite bridge structure in steel arches is safe to fatigue.

I n o r d e r t o p r o m o t e p u b l i c e d u c a t i o n a n d p u b l i c s a f e t y , e q u a l j u s t i c e f o r a l l , a b e t t e r i n f o r m e d c i t i z e n r y , t h e r u l e o f l a w , w o r l d t r a d e a n d w o r l d p e a c e , t h i s l e g a l d o c u m e n t i s h e r e b y m a d e a v a i l a b l e o n a n o n c o m m e r c i a l b a s i s , a s i t i s t h e r i g h t o f a l l h u m a n s t o k n o w a n d s p e a k t h e l a w s t h a t g o v e r n t h e m .

2004

Steel has gradually made a comeback in the deck structure of medium and long span bridges in France in the last twenty-five years. This trend started in the road bridges first and has now reached the maximum share in the new high-speed railway lines. Along with economical structures like the twin girder decks, steel has kept on being used in innovative and technically challenging design, especially in composite action with concrete. This paper shows the new trends in steel-composite bridge design taking place now in France and some other countries.