Search

Holistic analysis on steel- and composite railway bridges - Innovative solutions for strengthening durability and reducing construction times (Part 1). Investigations on sustainability on infrastructure projects differ from comparable investigations on building constructions through their longer life-cycle of the objects. Questions regarding sustainability are thus accompanied by questions of durability and simple, mostly undisturbed maintenance through the whole life-cycle. By the application of innovative railway bridges with steel and composite constructions blocking times induced by the construction time and maintenance actions within the usage phase, can be effectively reduced. Additionally the optimization of restrictive fatigue-details can affect the whole life-cycle of a bridge-construction. In the frame of the FOSTA-AiF-research project 'Holistic Assessment of steel- and composite railway bridges according to criteria of sustainability' different innovative railway bridge types have been compared to their corresponding conventional bridge types and evaluated over their whole life-cycle to quantify their advantageousness. While this article shows the investigated innovative bridge-variants in constructive regards and optimization proposals and design approaches are explained, the second article is about the holistic approach and the results of the sustainability assessment of the investigated steel-and composite railway bridge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovations are often initiated by bridge design. In this paper out of the large variety of new solutions and developments in bridge design, the focus is on three different subjects: Especially composite constructions made of structural steel and reinforced concrete adapt very easily to the most diverse situations and lead to efficient and beautiful bridges. The requirement of time effectiveness has driven solutions with prefabrication. First, a newly developed composite section with a trapezoidal steel web and horizontally lying studs is presented. Secondly, slender structures of thin plates are usually designed according to EN 1993-1-5. In order to adapt to an optimized overall curved shape in longitudinal direction the development of new buckling rules for non-rectangular steel panels is addressed. As a third point fatigue design, which is most relevant for the bridge dimensions, is addressed. Improvements by HFMI-treatment have been verified so that advantage can now be taken especially for high strength steels that allow a more slender design. The influence of the terms of application of HFMI-treatment on the quality has been investigated in a recent project. These different developments can lead to more slender, more efficient long living steel and composite bridges that satisfy future demands of increased sustainability. • New developments in steel and composite bridges • Composite Girders with horizontally lying studs and corrugated steel web • Buckling verification of non-rectangular panels • Effect of varying qualities of HFMI-treatment [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]