An application of the FRP girder bridge technology to cope with logistic difficulties

摘要

In the year 2013, Acciona Infraestructuras, a Spanish contractor, designed and manufactured a FibrernReinforced Plastic (FRP) road bridge which is expected to be installed in Gabon in 2014. Thernbridge girders, originally designed in steel reinforced concrete, were redesigned employing FRPs torntake advantage of the lightweight of these materials and the high prefabrication inherent with theirrnuse. In fact, concrete, which must be mixed in situ due to the unavailability of concrete plants at arnreasonable distance from the worksite, results to be expensive, since the transportation of thernaggregates to the worksite is made difficult by the lack of proper roads and bridges. This lack ofrninfrastructure also hampers the use of prefabricated reinforced concrete beams, since it makesrnextremely difficult moving heavy goods and machineries. The design and the manufacturingrnprocess of these two girders are presented in this paper.