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RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IIN INTERNATIONAL BRIDGE AND STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING Schedule:
Three 90-minute sessions: Friday 8:30 AM –10:00 AM / 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM / 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM
SESSION 1: Friday , April 25, 2008 8:30 AM – 10:00 AM
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly – Lessons from Bridge Design Competitions
This session will examine some recent design competition successes and failures, and explore the reasons for them. The author will demonstrate some of the benefits and pitfalls of the engineer-architect collaboration in relation to bridge design, drawing on examples from his own experience. Finally, he will summarize the new guidelines being developed by IABSE in
an attempt to set a recognized gold standard for design competitions for clients and designers to adopt worldwide.
PRESENTER: Ian Firth, Partner, Flint & Neill Partnership, United Kingdom (Consultant)
Bridges in Urban and Metropolitan Areas: A Spanish Perspective
Urban bridges with small or medium spans offer an opportunity to explore new forms and construction methods, because the cost of construction depends mainly on the free span and the material, as long as they can be built using conventional methods. In urban zones, the cost of the finishes, the restrictions of the site, the services affected, the traffic disruption, etc., can reach similar levels to the cost of the structure itself. Several case studies of urban road, railway, and pedestrian bridges already built in Spain and Latin America will be presented.
PRESENTER: Juan A. Sobrino, Dr. Civil Engineer, PEDELTA, Spain (Consultant)
SESSION 2: Friday , April 25, 2008 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM
The Liulin Bridge – A Cable-Supported Bridge in the People’s Republic of China
This session describes the design of the Liulin Bridge, a cable-supported signature bridge in the People’s Republic of China. The bridge concept was developed by DHV Engineering Consultancy (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., Verburg Hoogendijk Architects, and Delcan.
PRESENTER: Dr. Joost Meyboom, Vice President, Delcan, Canada (Consultant)
Lessons Learned from Catastrophic Failures of Bridges
The collapse of the I-35W Bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis on August 1, 2007 focused the nation’s attention on the state of our existing highway bridges. Almost immediately, there were calls from both the public and private sectors for increased funding for maintaining our bridge infrastructure. Even before the cause of the collapse had been determined, current bridge inspection procedures and techniques were publicly called into question.
This session will review the background and cause of these and other bridge failures. It will be shown that the cause of virtually all catastrophic bridge failures, which have been investigated to conclusion in the US in the past 30 years, falls into one of four categories: 1) scour underbridge foundations; 2) vehicular impact; 3) maintenance/design issues; and 4) failure to account for temporary conditions during construction. Interestingly, fatigue/brittle fracture does not appear on this causation
list. This session will discuss the reasons for this and will summarize other important lessons that catastrophic bridge failures have taught us.
PRESENTER: William J. Nugent, Principal, and Jonathan C. McGormley, Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, USA (Consultants)
Seismic Design for the Sustainable City: A Report on Japanese Practice
Advances in seismic design technology today enable structural engineers to design structures with a variety of seismic safety levels corresponding to different demands of society. However, the target of design is basically limited to secure the life-safety level within the relatively short serviceable life of each building. Constructing sustainable cities, which consist of buildings with long life, is generally not taken into account.
Strong earthquakes occur at intervals that are longer than the life of individual buildings or people. As the life of cities is obviously much longer, the corresponding seismic action may be stronger than the design action and may cause serious damage in buildings designed for their life only. Taking this into account and considering the life of cities, we must design each building for earthquakes to secure continuity of urban activities over disastrous earthquakes.
However, there are problems to solve in order to implement such seismic design. In this presentation, factors in seismic engineering that hinder the realization of a long-life city are identified and discussions on the steps structural engineers can contribute in constructing a sustainable society are indicated.
PRESENTER: Akira Wada, Professor, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Japan; Nobuyuki Mori, Chief Structural Engineer, Nikken Sekkei Ltd., Tokyo, Japan (Industry)
SESSION 3 : Friday , April 25, 2008 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM
Millau Viaduct - The Highest Vehicular Bridge in the World
Taller than the Eiffel Tower, tallest bridge in the world, longest cablestayed bridge in the world, and slung across the valley of the river Tarn, the ethereal Viaduct de Millau, which enjoys many superlatives, is France’s chosen solution for taking the A75
Motorway from Clermont-Ferraud south to Beziers. Construction on the Millau Viaduct began on October 10, 2001. It was inaugurated by President Jacques Chirac on December 14, 2004 to replace a bridge crossing the river in the center of the town of Millau, France.
PRESENTER: Michel Virlogeux, D.Engr., France (Consultant)
The Great Danish Bridge Connections: State of the Art of Bridge Engineering in Denmark
Denmark is a country comprised of numerous islands. Through the centuries, it has been a dream to create a transportation infrastructure that bridges the waters between these islands and the waters separating Denmark from its neighboring countries.
Denmark has come far in fulfilling this dream. Two connections, Great Belt Link and Oresund Link, which carry road and rail traffic, have proven to be true success stories, in terms of economics, social benefit, and environmental features. They are both landmarks with unique aesthetics, and their design and construction were engineering challenges that called for innovative solutions.
Denmark now plans its next large connections. One is the Femern Belt Link to Germany. The two countries have agreed upon the terms under which this link will be financed and a parliamentary decision is expected shortly. This link will be about 20 km long and will carry road and rail traffic. The most feasible technical solutions are a cable-stayed bridge and an immersed tunnel.
Another major link under discussion is a new East-West connection to relieve the Great Belt connection, which is experiencing steadily increasing traffic. This connection will link Zealand with Denmark’s second largest city, Aarhus, by crossing the Kattegat Sea. There are several technical options for this link, one of them being a high-speed rail connection. With this in place, Danes will be able to travel between Aarhus and Copenhagen in 30 minutes.
The government of Denmark realizes the need for long-term planning in the development of the transportation infrastructure, and large challenging bridge and tunnel connections are inevitably part of this process.
PRESENTER: Axel Christiansen, Director, Transport Infrastructure, Ramboll, Denmark (Consultant)
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