Sustainable Bridge Structures

The ever-increasing traffic demands, coupled with deteriorating condition of bridge structures, present great challenges for maintaining a healthy transportation network. The challenges encompass a wide range of economic, environmental, and social constraints that go beyond the technical boundaries of bridge engineering. Those constraints compound

Sustainable design of infrastructures has become a major matter of study since the recent establishment of the Agenda 2030. This paper provides a systematic literature review on the use of multi-criteria decision making techniques used so far for the sustainable design of bridges. Special attention is put as well on how the reviewed studies assess the sustainable performance of bridge designs along their life cycle from the economic, the environmental and the social perspective. Although SAW and AHP are recurrently used in the sustainable assessment of bridges, the analysis of the most recent articles show that the application of TOPSIS and PROMETHEE techniques are gaining increasing relevance for such purpose. Most of the studies focus on the research of the construction and the maintenance stage of bridges. However, a need for further analysis is identified when it comes to the assessment of the impacts resulting from the End of Life cycle stage of bridges from a sustainable point of view. The use of intuitionistic and neutrosophic logic have been detected as emerging alternatives to the fuzzy approach of decision making problems.

Sustainability is the defining challenge for engineers in the twenty-first century. In addition to safe, economic, and effi-cient structures, a new criterion, sustainable, must be met. Furthermore, this new design paradigm–addressing social, economic, and environmental aspects–requires prompt action. In particular, mitigation of climate change requires sustainable solutions for new as well as existing structures. Taking from both practice and research, this book provides engineers with applicable, timely, and innovative information on the state-of-the-art in sustainable structural design. This Structural Engineering Document addresses safety and regulations, integration concepts, and a sustainable approach to structural design. Life-cycle assessment is presented as a critical tool to quantify design options, and the importance of existing structures–in particular cultural heritage structures–is critically reviewed. Consideration is also given to bridge design and maintenance, structural reassessment, and disaster risk reduction. Finally, the importance of environmentally friendly concrete is examined. Consequently, structural engineers are shown to have the technical proficiency, as well as ethical imperative, to lead in designing a sustainable future.

Bridge Maintenance, Safety, Management, Life-Cycle Sustainability and Innovations contains lectures and papers presented at the Tenth International Conference on Bridge Maintenance, Safety and Management (IABMAS 2020), held in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan, April 11–15, 2021. This volume consists of a book of extended abstracts and a USB card containing the full papers of 571 contributions presented at IABMAS 2020, including the T.Y. Lin Lecture, 9 Keynote Lectures, and 561 technical papers from 40 countries. The contributions presented at IABMAS 2020 deal with the state of the art as well as emerging concepts and innovative applications related to the main aspects of maintenance, safety, management, life-cycle sustainability and technological innovations of bridges. Major topics include: advanced bridge design, construction and maintenance approaches, safety, reliability and risk evaluation, life-cycle management, life-cycle sustainability, standardization, analytical models, bridge management systems, service life prediction, maintenance and management strategies, structural health monitoring, non-destructive testing and field testing, safety, resilience, robustness and redundancy, durability enhancement, repair and rehabilitation, fatigue and corrosion, extreme loads, and application of information and computer technology and artificial intelligence for bridges, among others. This volume provides both an up-to-date overview of the field of bridge engineering and significant contributions to the process of making more rational decisions on maintenance, safety, management, life-cycle sustainability and technological innovations of bridges for the purpose of enhancing the welfare of society. The Editors hope that these Proceedings will serve as a valuable reference to all concerned with bridge structure and infrastructure systems, including engineers, researchers, academics and students from all areas of bridge engineering.

One of the latest trends in engineering is sustainable design, which is designing so that resources are available for many generations to come. Sustainable design considers the ecological, economic, and socio-cultural environments and works to balance all three. Sustainable bridge design is still in development, and clear standards and recommendations have not been formalized as they have in building design. The U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEEDTM) Green Building Rating System evaluates sustainable building design by awarding points based on measurable criteria. The LEEDTM rating system deals with buildings, but a similar system could be developed that would apply to bridge design. This report proposes a rating system for sustainable bridge design based on current practices and emerging technologies. Three bridges (either new or under construction) were rated using the system and the results are presented. Also discussed are steps and obstacles for implementation.

Sustainable and durable infrastructure facilities, including bridges, require optimum use of all resources involving reduction of energy and water consumption during all project phases, including planning, design, construction, maintenance, operations, repair and rehabilitation, and finally decommissioning and disposal of the debris at the end of its service life. Design of a sustainable and durable bridge structure requires consideration of a few feasible alternatives to develop an optimum option to fulfill all of the relevant limit states, with the best life-cycle performance and with the lowest life-cycle costs. The current national standards do not account for the observed increases in operating loads and the increasing deterioration of bridge structures over their service life. While these standards emphasize quality control in choice of materials, design and construction, they do not provide guidance and scientific tools to design and maintain a bridge ...

A comprehensive guide to bridge design Bridge Design - Concepts and Analysis provides a unique approach, combining the fundamentals of concept design and structural analysis of bridges in a single volume. The book discusses design solutions from the authors’ practical experience and provides insights into conceptual design with concrete, steel or composite bridge solutions as alternatives. Key features: Principal design concepts and analysis are dealt with in a unified approach. Execution methods and evolution of the static scheme during construction are dealt with for steel, concrete and composite bridges. Aesthetics and environmental integration of bridges are considered as an issue for concept design. Bridge analysis, including modelling and detail design aspects, is discussed for different bridge typologies and structural materials. Specific design verification aspects are discussed on the basis of present design rules in Eurocodes. The book is an invaluable guide for postgraduate students studying bridge design, bridge designers and structural engineers.

Essential infrastructures such as bridges are designed to provide a long-lasting and intergenerational functionality. In those cases, sustainability becomes of paramount importance when the infrastructure is exposed to aggressive environments, which can jeopardise their durability and lead to significant maintenance demands. The assessment of sustainability is however often complex and uncertain. The present study assesses the sustainability performance of 16 alternative designs of a concrete bridge deck in a coastal environment on the basis of a neutrosophic group analytic hierarchy process (AHP). The use of neutrosophic logic in the field of multi-criteria decision-making, as a generalisation of the widely used fuzzy logic, allows for a proper capture of the vagueness and uncertainties of the judgements emitted by the decision-makers. TOPSIS technique is then used to aggregate the different sustainability criteria. From the results, it is derived that only the simultaneous consideration of the economic, environmental and social life cycle impacts of a design shall lead to adequate sustainable designs. Choices made based on the optimality of a design in only some of the sustainability pillars will lead to erroneous conclusions. The use of concrete with silica fume has resulted in a sustainability performance of 46.3% better than conventional concrete designs.

Advanced composite materials for bridge structures are recognized as a promising alternative to conventional construction materials such as steel. After an introductory overview and an assessment of the characteristics of bonds between composites and quasi-brittle structures, Advanced Composites in Bridge Construction and Repair reviews the use of advanced composites in the design and construction of bridges, including damage identification and the use of large rupture strain fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites. The second part of the book presents key applications of FRP composites in bridge construction and repair, including the use of all-composite superstructures for accelerated bridge construction, engineered cementitious composites for bridge decks, carbon fiber-reinforced polymer composites for cable-stayed bridges and for repair of deteriorated bridge substructures, and finally the use of FRP composites in the sustainable replacement of ageing bridge superstructures. Advanced Composites in Bridge Construction and Repair is a technical guide for engineering professionals requiring an understanding of the use of composite materials in bridge construction. Reviews key applications of fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites in bridge construction and repair Summarizes key recent research in the suitability of advanced composite materials for bridge structures as an alternative to conventional construction materials

The work consists of two interrelated parts. The first one presents general issues relating to sustainable development. There are examples of the road investments, in which the problems arising from the lack of a general approach to environmental principles and consequently sustainable construction occurred. In the second part, on the examples of culverts and bridges, selected technical cases are discussed. The aim of the paper is to characterize the inconsistencies appearing during the bridge design process and maintenance in accordance to environmental categories. Several examples of the road-bridge investments carried out in the last decade have created the basis to formulate some opinions and questions. The difference between the approach of bridge engineers and that of environmental ones to the concept of animal transition is shown on the grounds of implemented technical and environmental standards. The existing problems are of dual nature, the first group being very general aspects i.e. concerning the concept of ecology, while the other one involves detailed tasks, e.g. shaping the image of a bridge. Several questions of great significance have been formulated and addressed to ecologists. The answers are indispensable for bridge engineers to solve technical aspects of the proper, sustainable design of environment-friendly bridges. Last but not least, the suggestion to use bridges as places for monitoring the environment in their surroundings is presented. This research work might be crucial for further good cooperation of bridge engineers and environmental ones.