Centner Footbridge bridges the gap between steel structural design and digital fabrication

The Centner Footbridge at Verviers, Belgium, is a successful design and artifact that links structural optimization and digital steel plate cutting techniques. This steel structure is designed as a statically determinate beam and has a U-profile in cross-section. The webs serving as the safety barriers are assembled from 10 different steel plates that exhibit a laser-cut aperture pattern. The aperture pattern and the steel plate thicknesses have been structurally optimized to deal with the maximum shear forces that occur. For construction purposes, the numerical FE analysis model was translated into a graphic digital model that serves as input data for the steel laser cutter. Once the laser has cut the aperture pattern, the plates are welded together and finished in the fabricator's workshop. The bridge was transported in one piece and installed overnight on site. Recently, the concept of the aperture patterned steel plates has also been successfully applied to other winning design projects. These designs demonstrate that the innovative link between structural optimization and digital steel cutting techniques offers a new and elegant solution for structural systems with a large variety of spans and shapes.