Environmentally sustainable, low-cost, high-quality LPSA footbridges

Wood is an inexhaustibly abundant natural resource that is consumed in a non-sustainable manner. Demand for commercial (mature) timber for the construction industry motivates global deforestation. However, the bulk of wood fibre in nature, in the form of small diameter round timber (SDT) is largely wasted. The LPSA (light prestressed segmented arch) structural system would rectify this anomaly and could hence change humanity’s relationship with the tree. By abolishing carpentry based SDT connection methods, the LPSA provides the engineering science framework for a sustainable structural engineering discipline based on SDT. For the first time, strength and behaviour of timber structures can be predicted through analysis. The LPSA also defines an environmentally sustainable construction technology offering large savings in manufacture, transportation, assembly, maintenance and dismantling for reuse. A unique feature of the LPSA slide-fit compression adhesion connection mechanism is the harmless dynamic energy absorption and dissipation, creating unrivalled, durable solutions in earthquake-, hurricane- and flood-prone locations, worldwide. All existing geometries can be reproduced in LPSA forms. Footbridges are an important area of technology in its own right. What adds to its importance is that footbridges are natural prototypes to test new highway bridge technologies. This is certainly true of LPSA footbridges. Two such bridges have been constructed in the USA, largely assembled by school children, as a community environmental education exercise. Advanced analysis demonstrated that those bridges were capable of carrying highway-bridge loading.

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