Research Grants

Promoting Steel as a Material of Choice in Bridge Infrastrucutres: Current and Future Innovations

With increased prices of steel, bridge owners and design engineers have become more reluctant to using steel in bridge superstructure, as it may be cost prohibitive. In this research, some countermeasures and innovative techniques are proposed that can be considered to (i) reduce the steel material content in bridge superstructure; (ii) enhance the constructability of steel I-girder and box-girder bridge systems in both straight and curved alignments, leading to a significant cost saving; and (iii) increase the awareness of bridge designers to important issues in design of new bridges and evaluation of old ones for rehabilitation, replacement, or retrofit; (vi) erect fully-prefabricated bridge superstructure to rapid construction, with steel as a material of choice. Specific objectives for the first phase of this research are to: (i) establish ready-to-use design tables of steel I- and box-girder bridges based on simplified analysis; and (ii) predict the minimum required cross-bracing spacing to limit warping stresses in compression flanges for both I-girder and box-girder bridges at construction stage. Overall, the aim is to develop steel or composite concrete-steel designs that are cost-effective and easy to design, thereby promoting the use of steel in bridge construction.