Development of a Light-Weight Emergency Bridge

Lightweight and corrosion resistant fiber-reinforced-polymer profiles have found increased application in bridge and industrial constructions in recent years. An emergency single-lane road-bridge for small military loads has been developed with a span of 20 m utilizing glass-fiber-reinforced-polymers (GFRP) composites. The paper presents the structural design, material properties, hybrid connections and the extensive test program along with the verification tests on the prototype bridge that have been performed under service loads and environmental conditions to verify the design and to calibrate the dynamic behaviour simulated with special software. A second research project on a GFRP-bridge for large military loads with a span of 30 m is briefly discussed.

The paper presents the main results of the first lightweight bridge and the expe-riences from the verification tests. Main objectives of the first bridge were thestructural design, hybrid connections and the extensive test programme. Finallyverification tests on the prototype bridge have been performed under serviceloads and environmental conditions to verify the design and to calibrate the dy-namic behaviour simulated with special software.

These results are currently being used to design and optimise the new bridge,which will be erected at the end of 2004. New types of strengthened bolted con-nections, advanced cross-sections for the deck plate and optimised members arecurrently being investigated.