Numerical study of pedestrian suspension bridge with innovative composite deck

Saima Ali; David Thambiratnam; Xuemei Liu; Sabrina Fawzia

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e04473

Numerical study of pedestrian suspension bridge with innovative composite deck

Heliyon. 2020 Jul 30;6(7):e04473. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e04473. eCollection 2020 Jul.

Authors

Saima Ali¹, David Thambiratnam¹, Xuemei Liu², Sabrina Fawzia¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Civil Engineering and Built Environment, Queensland University of Technology, Australia.
² Department of Infrastructure Engineering, University of Melbourne, Australia.

Abstract

The increasing trend of using light and slender deck in pedestrian bridge has raised the issue of instability under pedestrian movement. The suspension pedestrian bridges are more vulnerable as lateral vibration often occurred in such type of bridges. Hence, the current paper targeted to develop a pedestrian suspension bridge with a new type of composite deck using Glass Fibre Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) in the bottom layer and laminated glass in the top layer. The safety and serviceability of the developed pedestrian bridge is rigorously investigated. The performance of the suspension pedestrian bridge is comprehensively investigated by monitoring important response parameters such as stress, deflections, natural frequencies and accelerations under pedestrian loads and compared with current bridge design code requirements. The developed suspension pedestrian bridge with new type of composite deck could adhere the requirements of the bridge design code. Hence, the suspension pedestrian bridge mentioned in this paper is recommended for pedestrian use for its standard safety and serviceability.

Keywords: Acceleration; Civil engineering; Composite; Concrete technology; Deflection; Fibre reinforced polymer; Laminated glass; Natural frequency; Pedestrian suspension bridge; Structural analysis; Structural health monitoring; Structural mechanics.