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Prefabricated Bridge Elements and Connections: Towards Sustainability in Bridge Construction

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Materials".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2021) | Viewed by 4111

Special Issue Editor

Engineering & Software Consultants, Inc., Chantilly, VA 20151, USA
Interests: supplementary cementitious materials in concrete; chemical admixtures for concrete; self-consolidating concretes; internal curing; bond and dimensional stability of cementitious materials; ultra-high performance concrete
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The use of prefabricated concrete elements in bridges is a common practice to promote accelerated bridge construction (ABC). Prefabricated bridge elements (PBE) are often produced off-site in controlled environmental conditions of temperature and relative humidity, yielding high-quality elements. PBE are then transported to the jobsite for their connection using high-performing materials such as grout-like materials and, in recent cases, ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC). The connections must be robust and durable in order to ensure good performance of the whole infrastructure. This practice provides benefits in terms of cost and safety and results in infrastructure with higher quality. Higher-quality infrastructure components exhibit longer service lives that translate to lower maintenance needs and a lower frequency of replacement, both items that directly contribute to the sustainability of our world’s infrastructure. In addition, secondary benefits associated with the use of ABC techniques and PBE can result in a lower impact to the traveling public, causing fewer delays and detours, and a lower environmental impact, thus helping transportation agencies to contribute to the sustainability of our built environment.

This Special Issue aims at including manuscripts that discuss the use of prefabricated bridge elements and connections with innovative materials and technologies that can increase the service life of bridges, reduce delays to the traveling public, and decrease the environmental impact of bridge construction, promoting sustainability in the field of infrastructure construction.


Dr. Igor de la Varga
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • accelerated bridge construction (ABC);
  • prefabricated bridge elements (PBE);
  • connections;
  • bridge service life;
  • bridge sustainability;
  • grout-like materials;
  • ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC).

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

19 pages, 2923 KiB  
Article
Assessment of the Environmental Impacts of Bridge Designs Involving UHPFRC
by Numa Bertola, Célia Küpfer, Edgar Kälin and Eugen Brühwiler
Sustainability 2021, 13(22), 12399; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su132212399 - 10 Nov 2021
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 3679
Abstract
Ultra-High-Performance Fibre-Reinforced Cementitious Composite (UHPFRC) has been developed to design lightweight structures and enhance existing designs. As the environmental footprint of the construction industry must be significantly reduced, the potential to lower environmental impacts of structures using UHPFRC needs to be explored. While [...] Read more.
Ultra-High-Performance Fibre-Reinforced Cementitious Composite (UHPFRC) has been developed to design lightweight structures and enhance existing designs. As the environmental footprint of the construction industry must be significantly reduced, the potential to lower environmental impacts of structures using UHPFRC needs to be explored. While the greenhouse gas emissions of a volume of UHPFRC are higher than that of the same volume of concrete, UHPFRC enables the reduction in the amount of material required in structural designs and improves the durability of structures. The environmental impacts of structural designs must thus be compared on the cradle-to-grave use cycle of the design at a project scale. In this study, a methodology is proposed to evaluate the ecological burdens of several bridge designs involving various structural elements in UHPFRC. The method proposes an analysis over three time horizons: first, the construction phase, then including the scheduled maintenance, and finally, adding the elimination. A case study of a short-span bridge in Switzerland is used to assess three alternatives of bridge designs: a conventional reinforced-concrete structure, a composite timber–UHPFRC bridge, and a full-UHPFRC solution. The results show that timber–UHPFRC structures can significantly reduce the environmental impacts of bridge designs, showing promising results in terms of sustainable development. The use of the methodology supports bridge owners in assessing the environmental impacts of structural designs. Full article
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