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Engineering Structures
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A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T
Keywords: The use of high strength steel has the potential to reduce the amount of steel used in bridges and thereby,
High strength steel facilitate a more sustainable construction. In this study, an optimization of a composite steel and concrete bridge
Composite steel and concrete bridge is presented. The study aimed at identifying the potential benefits of using high strength steel, compared to
Optimization conventional steel, in terms of weight, material cost and environmental impact. The optimization routine fol-
Hybrid girder
lowed what is outlined in the Eurocode and satisfied both ultimate and serviceability limit state conditions, with
Fatigue
exception of fatigue. To study the influence of fatigue a separate verification was performed on the solutions
found from the optimization. The study showed that substantial savings in weight, environmental impact and
material cost could be made by implementing high strength steel. However, when the fatigue verification ac-
cording to Eurocode was considered, the potential benefits of using steels of higher grade vanished completely.
1. Introduction where labour is cheap the cost of material covers a larger share and vice
versa for countries with more expensive labour.
The use of high strength steel (HSS) for bridge structures can lead to Several studies have been made to investigate the potential eco-
substantial material savings, and therefore has the potential to be more nomical benefits and material savings of using HSS and hybrid girders.
economical and environmentally friendly, compared to mild steel. The In [4] a cost and weight optimization of I-girders with respect to
material savings that can be realized by an increase in steel grade are cross-sectional capacity for bending and shear, maximum deflection
highly dependent on to what degree the steel is being utilized. A and to prevent flange buckling into the web was performed, following
strategy in order to utilize the most of the steels capacity is to compose the Eurocode. The study covered homogeneous and hybrid girder so-
the steel girders with plates of different steel grade, called hybrid gir- lutions, with various span lengths and load magnitudes. It was con-
ders, which has been proven to be an economically sound approach for cluded that the higher grades became economical after a certain
many cases. This fact is partly reflected by how the Swedish highway threshold value of span length and load magnitude, and the minimum
and railway bridges have been designed in the last two decades, see cost was obtained by using a hybrid solution, for which the savings
Fig. 1, which shows the percentage and number of steel girder bridges were in the region of 4–10%. Meanwhile, the largest savings in weight,
built using hybrid girders. of 34%, was achieved by homogeneous HSS solution.
What often sets the upper limit for the steel grade that can be used, In [5] a cost evaluation of an arch bridge was performed, following
and is the main obstacle when using HSS, is the fatigue phenomenon. the Korean design standard. The arch bridge was designed using ex-
The reason behind this is that the fatigue life of welded structures is clusively conventional steel (365 MPa yield strength) and also a com-
typically characterized by crack growth, which is insensitive to the bination of conventional steel and HSS (690 MPa yield strength). A
yield strength of the material [2]. The governing regulations, e.g. genetic algorithm was used to optimize the design of the major steel
Eurocode, specify fatigue strength based on geometry only, without members (arch rib, main girders and cross beams) with respect to cost,
considering different material properties. Furthermore, since less ma- by assigning the HSS steel to the most stressed members. From the
terial and a higher stress state can be allowed for by implementing HSS optimization it could be concluded that the cost and weight of the
in the static case, a higher fluctuating stress range can be expected, major steel members could be reduced by 20.2% and 22.9% respec-
which amplifies the problems of using HSS. tively, by partly using HSS.
A substantial part of the cost for composite steel and concrete A series of continuous two span highway bridges were studied in
bridges is associated with the manufacturing of steel material; usually [6,7]; both homogeneous and hybrid solutions were included with steel
this covers 24–50% of the total cost of the steelwork [3]. In countries material of 345 MPa and 483 MPa yield strength. The design followed
⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: oskarsko@kth.se (O. Skoglund).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2020.110981
Received 25 February 2020; Received in revised form 12 June 2020; Accepted 16 June 2020
0141-0296/ © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY/4.0/).
O. Skoglund, et al. Engineering Structures 221 (2020) 110981
factor when using HSS, was that the insufficient fatigue strength cannot
be circumvented within the boundaries of the governing codes. Solving
the fatigue issue will require measures which are beyond the scope of
this paper. Furthermore, plenty of research is being devoted to increase
and improve the fatigue strength of welded HSS structures, so that the
fatigue strength will increase with the yield strength of the material
[10–12]. However, if the research of improving the conditions of HSS in
terms of fatigue should be meaningful, first the benefits of using HSS
must be proven.
The outline of this paper is as follows. In Section 2 the bridge that
was optimized is presented. The design routine, used for optimizing the
structure, is given in Section 3 and in Section 4 the fatigue verification
format is described. In Section 5 the optimization procedure that was
used is presented together with the objective functions. The results,
discussion and conclusions are given in Section 6–8, respectively.
2. Bridge case
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O. Skoglund, et al. Engineering Structures 221 (2020) 110981
Table 1 Table 2
Plate size and steel grade of the reference bridge. Steel grade and minimum elongation after fracture.
Segments A &C Segment B Grade Elongation [%]
Fig. 3. Equivalent characteristic values of the loads from the four lanes acting 3.4.1. Lateral torsional buckling
on one of the girders. The load values include the effect of vehicles in several The girders were ensured to have sufficient moment capacity with
lanes. respect to lateral torsional buckling by limiting the utilization ratio of
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O. Skoglund, et al. Engineering Structures 221 (2020) 110981
fwt
ψ=
fmc (1)
where fwt is the edge stress of the web plate in tension and fmc is the
maximum compressive stress in the junction between the web and the
flange.
The implication of clause 4.3(6) in EN 1993-1-5 [22], for hybrid
girders where the yield strength in the web plate can be higher than the
Fig. 4. Addition of strains: (a) Strains during construction phase (b) additional
yield strength in the flange plates and vice versa, is that the effective
strains added from the service phase (c) the final strain distribution that causes
collapse of the cross-section.
area of the web should be determined based on the maximum stress in
the junction of the web and the flange. Therefore the expression for the
slenderness parameter, λ̄ p of the web plate is as follows:
the steel during the construction stage. This limitation was enforced by
removing the girder solutions that did not fulfil the moment capacity fmc b¯/ t
λ¯ p =
with respect to lateral torsional buckling. The temporary lateral bra- 235 28.4 k σ (2)
cings, used during the construction, were assumed to provide enough
stiffness so that the buckling length could be confined between the where k σ is a buckling factor accounting for the stress distribution, b̄ is
bracers. The buckling length of the most critical location was 3 m and the height of the web (excluding the leg length of the welds) and t is the
was analysed as end-forked boundary conditions with equal end mo- thickness of the web. For determining k σ a linearly varying stress dis-
ments and free to warp. The effect of the timber formwork was not tribution was used, which was based on the stresses given in Eq. 1.
considered.
Any re-distribution of stresses connected to lateral torsional buck- 3.4.3. Construction stage
ling was not accounted for in the service stage. This is because that the The response of the cross-section was found by an iterative proce-
stresses that arise from lateral torsional buckling are self-equilibrium dure of matching a strain gradient and a position of the neutral axis
stresses and should therefore not affect the moment capacity in the with the external moment and at the same time achieving longitudinal
service phase as long as local buckling of the top flange is inhibited. force equilibrium. The iteration was done by successively assuming a
position of the neutral axis in a stepwise procedure along the height of
3.4.2. Hybrid girders the girder; at each position, the strain gradient was varied until the
The design rules for hybrid girders are given in EN 1993-1-5 [22] response of the cross-section was equal to the external moment. Once
and sets an upper limit for the ratio of material strength between flange the entire height of the girder had been stepped through, the position of
and web up to 2.0. Furthermore, the web plate is allowed to partially the neutral axis that gave the best correspondence with the longitudinal
yield close to the flange plate, irrespective of the cross-sectional class force equilibrium was used and a much finer iterative procedure was
(CSC), according to clause 4.3(6) in EN 1993-1-5 [22]. For web plates of performed in the neighbouring zone. The stresses were calculated based
CSC 3–4, the limit for the partial plastification in the compressed zone on the bilinear stress–strain relationship of the relevant steel material,
is the yield limit of the compressed flange. Herein, the strain corre- and the method followed what is outlined for hybrid girders in Section
sponding to the yield limit at the junction between the web and the 3.4.2. Failure conditions, in terms of limiting strains given in Section
flange was used. An example of a possible stress distribution for the 3.3.1, were formulated for each edge of the flange plates and web plate,
hybrid cross-section is given in Fig. 5. respectively.
The limits of the width-to-thickness ratios for compressed parts used
for cross-sectional classification is given in Table 5.2 of EN 1993-1-1 3.4.4. Service stage
[18]. These limits depend on the stress distribution and the size of the For the service stage, the final capacity of the composite structure is
compressive zone. For determining the limit between CSC 3 and 4 a sought and, therefore, the strain gradient need not to be varied. The
linear stress distribution, with a factor ψ covering the ratio between the design procedure during the service stage followed the method outlined
edge stresses of the plate is to be used. However, Eurocode does not in clause (1–5) of Section 6.2.1.4 in EN 1994-2 [21] and the design
specify how to account for partial plastification. Herein, to account for rules that were previously stated for hybrid girders. Once again the
the fact that the web becomes more prone to local buckling as the web resistance was determined through an iterative procedure based on the
starts to partially yield, the factor ψ was calculated as: stress–strain relationship of the materials and by assuming a position of
the neutral axis. The position of the neutral axis was moved until
equilibrium between compressive and tensile stresses was achieved.
The failure condition that set the strain gradient was based on the
limiting strains of steel and concrete. The limiting strains for steel were
as before, and the limiting strain for concrete was set to ∊cu3 = 0.35%. To
account for the construction stage, the previous strain stage was used as
an initial state of strain in the calculation. The additional moment ΔM
that could be applied before failure was calculated as:
n
ΔM = ∑ ΔFn |z n |
i=1 (3)
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O. Skoglund, et al. Engineering Structures 221 (2020) 110981
3.6. Deformations both corresponding to 2 million cycles. The partial factors for fatigue
loading γFf and for fatigue resistance γMf , was set to 1.0 and 1.35, re-
The limit for vertical deflection ΔRd and uplift uRd of the bridge end spectively.
is given in the Swedish Annex [23] and set to L/400 and 5 mm, re- FLM 3 is specified in EN 1991-2 [13] and consists of a single vehicle
spectively; the bridge ends extended 0.7 m from the supports. The represented by four discrete point loads. Depending on the annual
vertical deflection ΔEd and the uplift uEd was calculated under linear average daily traffic (AADT) the traffic is placed into different cate-
elastic conditions with standard analytical solutions and only con- gories. These traffic categories determine the number of heavy vehicle,
sidering the traffic load. For the self-weight of the structure the de- Nobs , per year. It was here assumed that an AADT of heavy traffic was
formation was assumed to be counteracted by superelevation of the ⩽ 600 , which gives traffic category 4 according to the Swedish Annex
bridge. [23], which in turn gives Nobs = 50, 000 . The fatigue resistance was
evaluated at three locations, see Fig. 6. Location 1 is at the junction
3.7. Limiting stresses between the transverse stiffener at the most critical intermediate bra-
cing and the flange plates; location 2 is at the junction between the web
The nominal stresses in the steel were limited according to EN 1993- plate and the flanges; and location 3 is at the welds connecting segment
2 clause 7.3(1) [24]: A and C with B. All three of these locations were verified against
longitudinal normal stresses and for a crack formation perpendicular to
fy
σEd,ser ⩽ the direction of stresses. According to EN 1993-1-9 [26], location 1, 2
γM,ser (5) and 3 has a detail category of Δσc = 80 MPa, Δσc = 125 MPa and
Δσc = 80 MPa, respectively. However, location 3 is adjusted for the size
fy effect according to [26]. Furthermore, the bridge was assumed to have
τEd,ser ⩽
3 γM,ser (6) a service life of 100 years.
where fy is the yield strength of the material, γM,ser is set to 1.0 and
σEd,ser and τEd,ser are the normal stresses and shear stresses respectively. 5. Optimization
Clause 4.3(7) in EN 1993-1-5 [22] was interpreted as allowing for
stresses to exceed the yield limit due to partial plastification. Therefore, For the optimization of the steel structure a genetic algorithm (GA)
in Eq. 5 the yield strength of the flange material was used. Furthermore, was used. The GA is based on a metaheuristic algorithm that simulates
the interaction between shear and normal stresses in the flange material the evolution of a population over several generations in order to find
is usually low and thus this interaction was neglected. The calculation the most optimal solution to a problem, for more information regarding
procedure followed what is outlined in Section 3.4, with the exception GAs see [27]. The solution of the GA is highly dependent on the input
for lateral torsional buckling, which was not included. parameters and the right choice of parameters is an optimization pro-
Due to that the shear stresses are highest in the web, the yield blem itself. Herein, Matlab’s toolbox for GAs was used with a popula-
strength for the web material was used in Eq. 6. The shear stresses were tion size of 50, a cross-over fraction of 80%, elite count of 5% and
calculated as follows: adaptive feasible mutation function; see [28] for more details regarding
the toolbox. To ensure that a reliable solution was given the initial
VEd,ser
τEd,ser = population, of 50 individuals, were based on the 50 best girder solu-
Aw (7)
tions out of 20,000 randomly generated girders. Furthermore, the op-
where VEd,ser is the shear force and Aw is the area of the web of the steel timization was terminated after which the average relative change in
girder. the best objective function over 50 generations was less than or equal to
The stresses in the concrete σEd,c,ser were limited to 0.6fck according a specified function tolerance. The function tolerance was set to
to clause 7.2(102) in EN 1992-2 [25]. 1 × 10−6 . On average, an optimization took approximately 150 gen-
erations and about 145 min of CPU time to converge.
4. Fatigue verification The design variables cover the thickness and the width/height of the
three individual steel plates; upper flange, lower flange and web-plate.
A separate fatigue verification was performed for girder solutions The six design variables are collected in the design vector:
obtained from the optimization procedure. The damage equivalent x = [tuf buf tw hw tlf blf ] (9)
method given in EN 1993-2 with fatigue load model 3 (FLM 3) was used
for this purpose. The fatigue assessment format is defined as: where t denotes the thickness, b the width, h the height and the sub-
Δσc script uf, w and lf denotes the upper flange, the web-plate and the lower
γFf ΔσE2 ⩽ flange, respectively. The design variables are continuous and given by
γMf (8)
the following intervals, given in mm: 10 ⩽ tuf ⩽ 60 , 10 ⩽ tlf ⩽ 60 ,
where ΔσE2 is the equivalent stress range, Δσc is the detail category, 10 ⩽ tw ⩽ 40 , 200 ⩽ buf ⩽ 1000 , 200 ⩽ blf ⩽ 1000 and 1000 ⩽ h w ⩽ 2800 .
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O. Skoglund, et al. Engineering Structures 221 (2020) 110981
In the optimization, inequality constraints were used. The general price might vary considerably between different manufacturers and at
mathematical expression can be formulated as: another point in time than the one considered herein. A parametric
ED − RD ⩽ 0 (10) study on the influence of variations in steel prices is presented in Sec-
tion 6.3.
where ED is the design effect of action and RD is the design resistance.
The seven inequality constraints are collected in array c , which for all 5.1.3. CO2 emission of the steel girders
individual cells should be less than or equal to 0. The environmental impact of the different steel grades are set in
c= [MEd − MRd (x ); VEd − VRd (x ); uEd (x ) − uRd… relation to its CO2 equivalent (CO2eq) emission. The CO2eq of different
ΔEd (x ) − ΔRd; σEd,ser (x ) − fy / γM,ser;… steel grades are given in Table 3 together with the ratio of the global
warming potential (GWP) over the yield strength of the material fy ,
τEd,ser (x ) − fy /( 3 γM,ser ); σEd,c,ser (x ) − 0.6fck ] (11) normalized with respect to S355. The values are taken from Table 6.6.1
in [29], with exception of the value for S275, which was extrapolated.
where cell c[1] covers the bending moment resistance and is explained
These values are based on alloying content and adjusted for the average
in Section 3.4, cell c[2] covers the shear resistance and is covered in
energy consumption of the different processing steps. Furthermore,
Section 3.5, cell c[3] and cell c[4] covers the deflection and uplift of the
these values do not consider any recycling of scrap metal.
bridge, respectively, and is covered in Section 3.6, cell c [5], c [6] and
The objective function for the CO2eq emission (CO2eqe) is as fol-
c[7] covers the limiting stresses of the steel and the concrete and is
lows:
given in Section 3.7. All the design effects are calculated based on
analytical solutions under linear elastic conditions with loads and load CO2 eqe = ρ (Auf GWPuf + Aw GWPw + Alf GWP lf ) (14)
combinations presented in Section 3.2.
where GWPuf , GWPw and GWP lf is the value of global warming potential
for the steel grade of the upper flange, web plate and lower flange,
5.1. Objective functions respectively.
The steel girders carrying the concrete bridge deck were optimized
5.2. Reliability of the results
against three objective functions, weight, CO2 emission and material
cost of the steel girders.
The GA is a stochastic algorithm, meaning, that with the exact same
input different outcome can be expected. As a means to quantify the
5.1.1. Weight of the steel girders expected scatter a validation of the analysis have been made, and the
The objective function for the weight of the two steel girders, ex- scatter v was estimated as:
pressed in kg/m, is as follows:
s
W = ρ (Auf + Aw + Alf ) v=
(12) μ (15)
where ρ is the density of steel, set to 7850 kg/m3,
Aw is the area of the where s is the standard deviation and μ is the mean value. A scatter of
web plates and Auf and Aul is the area of the upper and lower flange, 0.69% was obtained by running the analysis with the same set of input
respectively. 48 times. However, the relative difference between the lowest and
highest value was 3.84%. Therefore, to improve the reliability of the
5.1.2. Material cost of steelwork results, for each material combination presented in Table 5, the opti-
The objective function for the cost of the steel material for the two mization was performed 12 times with the exact same input, and the
girders, expressed in €/m, is as follows: lowest of the values obtained was presented in the results. The material
C = ρ (Auf Cuf + Aw Cw + Alf Clf ) (13) combinations used for the refined analysis were chosen based on some
of the best girder solutions with respect to the three objective functions,
where Cw , Cuf and Clf is the material price of the steel grade of the web together with common solutions found in the Swedish bridge stock and
plate and the upper and lower flange, respectively. The material price also some unconventional solutions.
together with the normalized value of material price over yield strength
with respect to S355 are given in Table 3 and based on Swedish prices 6. Results
for the first quarter of 2018; values given within parenthesis are in-
terpolated values. It should be noted that the steel prices were obtained Herein, the results of the optimization process, for the 454 material
from a single Swedish manufacturer of steel bridges and that the steel combinations, with respect to weight, CO2eqe and cost of the steel
material are given, together with a fatigue verification.
Table 3
The material price; the normalized ratio of material price over yield strength fy
6.1. Results from the optimization process
with respect to S355; the global warming potential (GWP), expressed as kg
CO2eq/kg steel; and the normalized ratio of GWP over yield strength fy with
The average steel grade and standard deviation, given within par-
respect to S355, is given for eight different steel grades. The material price enthesis, for the upper flange, web and lower flange, together with the
given within parenthesis are interpolated values and the GWP value within
interval of savings, are given for each objective function in Table 4. The
parenthesis is an extrapolated value.
results are based on the 45 best material combinations out of 454
Grade Material price Material price/f y GWP value GWP/ fy possible, and the savings are set in relation to the homogeneous S355
[ €/kg steel] [kg CO2eq/kg steel] solution. The homogeneous S355 solution was chosen as reference since
it is one of the most popular steel grade combinations in Sweden and in
S690 1.09 0.78 2.1880 0.55
S620 (0.99) 0.79 2.1579 0.60 the rest of Europe [1,30].
S550 (0.89) 0.80 2.1278 0.67 The results presented in Table 4 show, irrespective of objective
S500 (0.82) 0.81 2.1063 0.73 function, that the highest steel grade should be placed in the lower
S460 0.765 0.82 2.0891 0.79 flange, as to maximize the girders capacity and to minimize the ob-
S420 0.745 0.87 2.0719 0.86
jective functions. A high SD, for instance of the upper flange, indicates
S355 0.72 1.0 2.0440 1.0
S275 0.685 1.23 (2.0096) 1.27 that there are good solutions of which the steel grade can be both low
and high. Meanwhile, a low SD, for instance of the web plate when
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O. Skoglund, et al. Engineering Structures 221 (2020) 110981
Table 4
The average steel grade and standard deviation SD, given within parenthesis,
together with the interval of savings for each objective function, with respect to
the homogeneous S355 solution. The interval and material strength are based
on the 45 best girder solutions.
Objective Avg. strength and (SD) [MPa] Savings [%]
function UF WB LF
Fig. 8. The ratio of the area of the upper flange over the area of the lower flange
as a function of the ratio of the steel grade of the upper flange over the lower
flange.
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O. Skoglund, et al. Engineering Structures 221 (2020) 110981
Fig. 9. Normalized values against the detail category of location 1, 2 and 3 Fig. 10. The effect on the normalized values of the material cost for different
respectively for 18 material combinations. steel prices of material combination index 16 (S460/S460/S690). The values
are normalized against the homogeneous S355 solution.
This means that the bridge was conservatively designed for the design
conditions that were given herein. homogeneous S355 solution. The normalized cost is rather insensitive
to the price of S690, this is because a rather low percentage of all the
material is allocated in the lower flange.
6.3. Additional parametric study
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O. Skoglund, et al. Engineering Structures 221 (2020) 110981
functions was the hybrid S460/S460/S690 (index 16, in Table 5). This is 40 mm. Furthermore, with a lower weight of the steel structure less
was possible because of a good utilization ratio of all the steel plates fuel and, possibly, another crane during construction can be used.
and a lower material price per yield strength compared to the homo-
geneous S355 solution. 8. Conclusions
In general, hybrid girder solutions provided the most cost effective
solutions. However, the fact that the material price also depends on the In this study, the steel structure of a steel and concrete composite
size of the order, and that there usually is a minimum order size of each bridge was optimized with weight, cost and CO2eqe as separate ob-
steel grade might pose a problem for the hybrid solutions. Something jective functions. The novelty of this research comes from studying the
which was not covered in this study. impact of CO2eqe and to base the design, used in the optimization of
The adjustment factors (defined in Section 4.3.2 of EN 1991-2 [13]), steel and concrete composite bridges, on the Eurocode.
which control the magnitude of the traffic load used in the cross-sec- Without considering fatigue the solutions containing a higher steel
tional optimization, were in this case selected to be only slightly higher grade showed great potential in saving material, lowering the CO2eqe
than the minimum allowed in the Swedish Annex. If the adjustment and reducing the material cost of the steelwork. The largest savings in
factors were taken to be unity instead, which is the maximum possible weight and CO2eqe was achieved by the homogeneous S690 solution
and could occur for some traffic situations, the load effect from the and the largest savings in cost was achieved by the hybrid S460/S460/
bending moment would be 11% higher. Furthermore, a few loads were S690 solution. By comparing these with the homogeneous S355 solu-
omitted in the optimization routine, for instance load from self-weight tion savings in weight, CO2eqe and cost of 33%, 28.3% and 16.4%
of asphalt, from temperature effects and from shrinkage of concrete. could be made, respectively. Furthermore, out of the 454 possible
The increase in load effect from a higher traffic load and from the material combinations, there were several different combinations that
omitted loads could possibly lead to an increase in cross-section di- would give similar result in terms of savings. However, when the in-
mensions enough for the optimized homogeneous S355 solution to have fluence of fatigue was taken into consideration the higher strength
sufficient fatigue life. However, it should be noted that the lowest traffic steels lost all its beneficial effects. Even for many of the solutions
category for fatigue was chosen and, therefore, that the influence of containing conventional steel (S275 - S460) fatigue was decisive.
fatigue could be even greater. Therefore, as a practical recommendation, the preliminary design of the
In the design algorithm a few controls related to the capacity were steel girders could be based on the fatigue verification, and by fulfilling
neglected, for instance the spacing of the shear studs. The spacing of the the fatigue verification the girders will most likely have sufficient ca-
shear studs depends on the longitudinal shear flow between the steel pacity with respect to other ULS and SLS conditions.
and the concrete, and as the shear flow increases the number of shear Furthermore, the fatigue verification showed that by improving the
studs should be increased. The optimal design of the homogeneous fatigue life of the web stiffener, often connected to the intermediate
S690 solution had 29% higher shear flow compared to the homo- bracings, the full static capacity can be realized for low and medium
geneous S355 solution, due to the lower amount of steel material. This grade steels (S275 - S460). This can for instance by done be weld-im-
was not covered in the design algorithm since it would not affect the provement techniques, new or modified structural details or placing the
objective functions used in this article. fatigue prone details in regions subjected to a lower stress range.
The additional parametric study showed that the span length, con- Hybrid girder solutions gave the best utilization ratio and therefore
crete thickness and quality did not have any noticeable influence on the also the most cost effective solutions; where the highest steel grade
relative savings of any of the objective functions. This is most likely the should be placed in the lower flange. Furthermore, the steel grade of the
case since the decisive design criterion, for all bridge configurations, web plate and upper flange seemed to be of equal importance.
was based on the yield strength of the material. Furthermore, having
three girders supporting the concrete slab, instead of the original two, CRediT authorship contribution statement
was also investigated. However, this did barely change the design loads.
For the point loads the design load decreased by 1.4% and the evenly Oskar Skoglund: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software,
distributed load decreased by 4.9%. Due to the small change in design Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing - original draft,
loads the same savings in weight, CO2 emission, and material cost can Writing - review & editing, Visualization. John Leander:
be expected for the two and three girder bridge configuration. Conceptualization, Resources, Writing - review & editing, Supervision,
Many of the optimized solutions required a large improvement of Project administration, Funding acquisition. Raid Karoumi:
the detail category, especially for the transverse web stiffener, see Conceptualization, Resources, Writing - review & editing, Supervision,
Fig. 9. The fatigue life can be improved by the designer by smart de- Project administration, Funding acquisition.
tailing, aiming at placing the details in regions with lower stresses.
However, this will only lead to a marginally lower stress range for most Declaration of Competing Interest
cases. Another technique of improving the fatigue life is by post-weld
treatment, which have shown promising results, and the hammer pe- The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
ening method has been reported to give improvements of 50–200% interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
[11]. The fatigue life can also be improved by new or modified struc- ence the work reported in this paper.
tural details, with lower stress concentrations and/or lower tensile re-
sidual stresses. Acknowledgements
Determining the total cost of a bridge structure is a complex pro-
blem containing several uncertainties and case specific factors. The The funding for this project, provided by the Swedish Transport
fabrication costs are to a large extent depending on the welding cost, Administration (Trafikverket), NCC, ELU and SSAB, is gratefully ac-
which in turn is depending on the weldability and the complexity of the knowledged. BBT project number 2016-010.
joint. Good weldability is often associated with a low carbon equivalent
value, and, especially, for steels produced by thermo-mechanical rolling References
this can be achieved. However, for thicker plates and when thermo-
mechanical rolling cannot be applied, preheating might be necessary to [1] Skoglund O, Leander J, Karoumi R. Overview of steel bridges containing high
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