LOOKING AFTER OLDER BRIDGES

摘要

Many of today's challenging issues for bridge engineers come from looking after old structures. In the years to come, Cowi's Tina Vejrum expects to see more projects to replace decks on existing suspension bridges, following Canada's original lead with the Lions' Gate Bridge and now the ongoing Macdonald Bridge project. "I think there is a new market there with interesting challenges," she says. A number of such bridges are reaching the end of their service life, she says. "Fortunately on a suspension bridge we can replace the deck - it's a lot easier than for a cable-stayed bridge." Limiting closure times is a key issue, as too is maintaining the aerodynamic stability in the interim phase where the bridge is not fully connected and has two different cross sections.