Stress Ribbon Concrete Bridges

Stress ribbon bridges are efficient, "legible" structures whose behaviour corresponds to a cable hanging freely between supports and stabilized by weight. However, as the dead load increases, so does bending stiffness, resulting inevitably in unwelcome bending stresses at the supports. For this reason, stress ribbon bridges have usually been provided with relatively complicated deviation saddles. In this paper, the concept of a jointless, completely monolithic prestressed concrete stress ribbon bridge is presented, together with some design recommendations.