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Lecture

Bridge Design: Structural Elements and Load-Bearing Systems

In course

CIVIL-330: Bridge design

Introduction à la conception et au dimensionnement des ponts routiers en construction mixte, en béton armé et précontraint. Ce cours porte sur le choix du type de pont, des principales dimensions des éléments structuraux, du matériau, du mode de constructi ...

Description

This lecture covers the design of bridge structures, focusing on deformation, state of stress, temperature effects, and the design of piers and abutments. It also discusses the characteristics of different materials, types of shocks, and longitudinal load-bearing systems.

Instructors (2)

Alain Nussbaumer

Aurelio Muttoni

Aurelio Muttoni is full Professor and Head of the Structural Concrete Laboratory at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland). He received his diploma and PhD in civil engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland, in 1982 and 1989, respectively. His current teaching activities focus on the conceptual design of structures, theory and dimensioning of concrete structures as well as bridge design. His research group is active in the following domains: behaviour and design methods for structural concrete, conceptual design of innovative structures, shear in structural concrete, punching shear of slabs, nonlinear structural analysis including its reliability, bond between steel and concrete, aggregate interlocking, fatigue and influence of sustained loading on the concrete strength, mechanical behaviour and design concepts for ultra-high performance concrete, textile concrete and recycled concrete. Aurelio Muttoni was the recipient of the Chester Paul Siess Award for Excellence in Structural Research in 2010 and the co-recipient of the Wason Medal for Most Meritorious Paper in 2014 of the American Concrete Institute. He is a member of the Presidium of fib (International Federation for Structural Concrete), several fib commissions and task groups and has been Project Team Leader for the second generation of EN 1992-1-1 (Eurocode for structural concrete). Aurelio Muttoni is also cofounder and partner of the Muttoni & Fernández consulting office (www.mfic.ch). This office is active in the conceptual design, analysis and dimensioning of load-bearing structure in architecture and civil engineering constructions as well as consulting activities in the field of structural engineering.

Official source

Ontological neighbourhood

Civil engineering

Structural engineering: Topics in structural engineering

Related concepts (30)

Bridge

A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually something that is otherwise difficult or impossible to cross. There are many different designs of bridges, each serving a particular purpose and applicable to different situations.

Truss bridge

A truss bridge is a bridge whose load-bearing superstructure is composed of a truss, a structure of connected elements, usually forming triangular units. The connected elements (typically straight) may be stressed from tension, compression, or sometimes both in response to dynamic loads. The basic types of truss bridges shown in this article have simple designs which could be easily analyzed by 19th and early 20th-century engineers. A truss bridge is economical to construct because it uses materials efficiently.

Structural engineering

Structural engineering is a sub-discipline of civil engineering in which structural engineers are trained to design the 'bones and muscles' that create the form and shape of human-made structures. Structural engineers also must understand and calculate the stability, strength, rigidity and earthquake-susceptibility of built structures for buildings and nonbuilding structures. The structural designs are integrated with those of other designers such as architects and building services engineer and often supervise the construction of projects by contractors on site.

Structural analysis

Structural analysis is a branch of solid mechanics which uses simplified models for solids like bars, beams and shells for engineering decision making. Its main objective is to determine the effect of loads on the physical structures and their components. In contrast to theory of elasticity, the models used in structure analysis are often differential equations in one spatial variable. Structures subject to this type of analysis include all that must withstand loads, such as buildings, bridges, aircraft and ships.

Structural load

A structural load or structural action is a force, deformation, or acceleration applied to structural elements. A load causes stress, deformation, and displacement in a structure. Structural analysis, a discipline in engineering, analyzes the effects of loads on structures and structural elements. Excess load may cause structural failure, so this should be considered and controlled during the design of a structure. Particular mechanical structures—such as aircraft, satellites, rockets, space stations, ships, and submarines—are subject to their own particular structural loads and actions.

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