Special heavy plate solutions for bridges

In many European countries, both road and railway infrastructure needs intensive investment to keep up with the growing demands of mobility [1] and goods traffic. Steel or steel-concrete composite bridges offer viable and very sustainable solutions in this context [2]. Owing to its unlimited recyclability, steel can generally be regarded as the ideal material for such sustainable structures. In particular, when designers or fabricators exploit the possibilities of the steel industry available nowadays, very cost-efficient and remarkable structures are feasible. This paper will highlight some of the newest developments in heavy plates for bridge-building. For example, the so-called thick-plate trough bridges have proved to be a favourable concept for small-span railway bridges [3]. Very heavy plates with single plate weights of up to 42 t allow these bridges to be built very efficiently from just one or very few single plates. Another interesting development is the so-called longitudinally profiled plate, which allows the plate thickness to be varied along the actual loading profile. Finally, the benefits of high-thickness thermomechanically rolled plates (TM steel) will be discussed; these offer an ideal solution as the use of higher-strength steels in bridge-building gains more and more ground.