PREPARATION FOR THE NEXT GENERATION OF BRIDGE TECHNOLOGY IN KOREA

摘要

In the years to come, Korea will have the privilege to become the country presenting the most diversifiednbridge construction activities that will constitute precious case studies for the international bridge community.nUntil 2011, about 50 major bridges with various types will link some of the 3,000 islands of thenpeninsula to the mainland, which are taking place in the ambitious plan for building an efficient nationalntransportation network and set the bases for the future strategic hub of Northeast Asia. In order to sustainnthis unprecedented construction activity of infrastructure systems and the encouraging technological accomplishmentsnthat have been acquired to date, the Korean R&D community agreed with the necessity tonprepare for the next generation of construction technology. There is a clear need to develop and construct annew generation of high performance facilities by means of enhanced materials, advanced structural systemsnand technologies as well as upgraded or improved specifications or standards in a lifetime perspective.nThis paper identifies some major technical issues and challenges for the next generation of bridge andnaddresses relevant and systematic construction-related R&D programs in Korea. Among them, the KoreanBridge Design & Engineering Research Center (KBRC) has been launched in 2004 as a national researchnprogram of the Ministry of Construction and Transportation to be the core of new research and technologyntransfer program in the area of bridge technology and expedite the process of full transition to the reliabilityandnperformance-based bridge design codes and specifications in Korea. Other large R&D programs arenalso reviewed in terms of durability and lifecycle cost with lifetime perspective like the Bridge 200 R&Dnproject of the Korea Institute of Construction Technology and high-performance materials like the HighnPerformance Construction Material Research Center (HIPER CONMAT).