Sustainable bridges

Sustainable bridges is a project which assesses the readiness of railway bridges to meet the demands of the 2020 scenario and provides the means for up-grading them if they fall short. The 2020 scenario requires increased capacities with heavier loads to be carried and bigger forces to be absorbed due to longer faster trains and mixed traffic. All type of bridges are being considered. You can read more about the project by pressing the project logo or project name above.

Traffic forecasts indicate that that the number of train passengers in year 2020 will be doubled in relation to to-day and that the freight traffic on our railways will increase three times during the same period. Railway transport is therefore a priority area within the European Community.

To enhance the railway network, including the bridges, huge investments will be required. With an estimated value of the European railway bridges of 50 billion Euros, a capacity increase by 2 % would mean an added value of 1 million Euros, an enormous amount.

A major project funded within the EC sixth framework programme has recently been started. The project supports European collaboration in a research project with the title “Sustainable Bridges - Assessment for Future Traffic Demands and Longer Lives”. The project partners represent European bridge owners, consultants, contractors, research institutes and universities. The organisation is based on fast and efficient decision-making and decentralized responsibilities among the ten core partners and the other twenty-two partners.

Skanska Teknik AB, The Swedish National Rail Administration, The Swedish National Road Administration, The Swedish Geotechnical Institute, Designtech AB and BPE Systems are together with the four technical universities the Swedish representatives in this project. Skanska Teknik AB has undertaken the assignment as project coordinators with professor Ingvar Olofsson, Göteborg as the project manager. Professor Lennart Elfgren at Luleå technical university took the initiative to the project, and he is also the scientific leader of the project. Ingvar Olofsson emphasizes that there are strong economical incentives for the railway owners in finding reliable and cost efficient methods for upgrading or strengthening of the existing railway bridges, as this will imply increased capacities with regard to speed as well as loading capacity.

Many railway bridges in Europe, e.g. in Eastern Europe and in UK, are in bad condition, while other bridges may have a latent overcapacity which is not utilized. Also in Sweden there is a need for upgrading of the bearing capacity of the existing bridges. Major economical savings will be achieved if increased loads on the major railways lines can be allowed. Wagons carrying higher loads can be used with a reduction of the total freight costs as a concequence. There are also major interests from the bridge owners in minimizing the investments for construction of new bridges, where local strengthening of a bridge is sufficient.

The main project objectives are to increase the transport capacity of existing bridges by allowing axle loads up to 33 tonnes for freight traffic and increasing of the maximum speed to 350 km/hour for the passenger traffic. Efforts will further be made to increase the residual lifetime of the bridges with up to 25 %. The activities within the project will also focus on new automatic systems for monitoring of the bridges. The new methods and systems will replace existing methods, where just visual inspection is made at intervals.

The project will deliver a “tool-box”, where owners, consultants and contractors will find cost-effective guide lines, design methods, repair- and strengthening methods as well as complete monitoring systems for direct application on different types of bridges.

The four-year project has a total budget of 10 million Euros and incorporates thirty-two partners from twelve European countries.

The web-address to the official project home page is: www.sutainablebridges.net