Closing the gap towards super-long suspension bridges using computational morphogenesis.

ABSTRACT: Girder design for suspension bridges has remained largely unchanged for the past 60 years. However, for future super-long bridges, aiming at record-breaking spans beyond 3 km, the girder weight is a limiting factor. Here we report on a design concept, inspired by computational morphogenesis procedures, demonstrating possible weight savings in excess of 28 percent while maintaining manufacturability. Although morphogenesis procedures are rarely used in civil engineering, often due to complicated designs, we demonstrate that even a crude extraction of the main features of the optimized design, followed by a simple parametric optimization, results in hitherto unseen weight reductions. We expect that further studies of the proposed design, as well as applications to other structures, will lead

SUBMITTER: Baandrup M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7264174 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature