Case Study of Bridge Design Competition

Some proof that politics and culture bear direct influence on innovation in bridge design comes from post-World War II Germany, which has promoted structural innovations through bridge design competitions. The design competition is a realistic policy tool for encouraging engineers to design structures creatively. This paper presents a case study of one recent competition for a bridge in Ingolstadt, Germany, to demonstrate in detail the competition's organization. The paper explains the conceptual design process for the winning bridge and highlights specified factors what led to innovation. A simple structural explanation illuminates the fitness of the early design process for conceiving structural innovations.