DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION AND MONITORING OF A BOWSTRING ARCH BRIDGE MADE EXCLUSIVELY OF TIMBER, CFRP AND GFRP.

摘要

A pedestrian bridge made exclusively of glulam structural timber, CFRP and GFRP had been designed and constructed at the Empa site in Duebendorf, Switzerland. The advanced materials glulam, pin loaded CFRP straps and GFRP elements were combined in a new bridge design, a bowstring arch bridge. It turned out and could be shown, that the required tensioning of the bow as well as the lateral stressing of the bridge slab could be realized as planned. However, also a potential for an improvement of some details and procedures could be identified and it is proposed to consider this for future constructions.Load tests confirmed a superior stiffness of the system. The installed continuous monitoring of the behaviour of the bridge with the use of partly new developed sensors and methods proved to work well and to deliver reliable data.Considering all the advantages of the described bowstring arch structure like lightweight, high stiffness, no corrosion, easy installation, good value and an expected long service life, a good market potential for such structures can be expected.