Skip to main content

Composite bridge awards

The American Composites Manufacturers Association (ACMA) has announced its Awards for composites excellence (ACE) at the COMPOSITES 2010 event. The awards were presented in a number of categories, with two awards gone to composite bridge structures.
February 8, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
The 1505 American Composites Manufacturers Association (ACMA) has announced its Awards for composites excellence (ACE) at the COMPOSITES 2010 event. The awards were presented in a number of categories, with two awards gone to composite bridge structures. The most creative application award was presented to AEWC Advanced Structures & Composites Center, 1507 University of Maine, Orono, Maine, for its Bridge-in-a-Backpack, a hybrid composite-concrete bridge combining the benefits of advanced composite materials and concrete. The concept offers a cost effective, long-lasting, and easy-to-erect bridge technology. This lightweight, corrosion resistant system for short-to-medium-span bridge construction uses FRP composite arch tubes that act as a stay-in-place form, structural reinforcement, and environmental protection for concrete fill. The lightweight arches can be placed quickly by hand. The infinite possibility award was presented to 1509 Harbor Technologies, Brunswick, Maine, for its hybrid composite beam (HCB), a new structural member developed for use as a girder in bridges and other structures. This is comprised of a shell, compression reinforcement and tension reinforcement. The shell consists of a fibre reinforced polymer box beam. The compression reinforcement consists of concrete, pumped into a profiled conduit (generally an arch) within the beam shell, while carbon, glass or steel fibres anchored at the ends of the compression reinforcement provide the tension reinforcement. The HCB combines the strength and stiffness of concrete and steel with the lightweight and corrosion advantages of composite materials.

Related Content

  • Bridge under discussion for UK’s River Thames
    June 19, 2012
    Engineering specialist AECOM will carry out a study into the proposed Lower Thames Crossing project in the UK.
  • Bridges in Sunderland and Poland are being slid into place
    February 6, 2017
    Sunderland sees a bridge slide into place and two bridges inch their way across a Polish highway Slowly but surely, a 2,500 tonne section of a new bridge deck was eased out from the banks of the River Wear near Sunderland in northern England. It now straddles the water, pointing towards the opposite bank which it will eventually reach after another sliding operation likely to take place next year. The project to build the New Wear Crossing is now halfway through with the first half of the steel deck b
  • Concern over glass bead quality grows
    March 1, 2012
    Further evidence is emerging of the potential risks of glass beads used for road markings supplied by Chinese firms.
  • Cellular Confinement Systems Get “Tough”
    May 10, 2012
    An Interview with PRS-Med’s VP of Business Development and Marketing Hadas Levin by Chris Kelsey The year 1977 has become a watershed year for polymeric construction materials. Dr. J.P. Giroud coined the terms ‘geotextile’ and ‘geomembrane’ in a key paper at the First International Conference on Geosynthetics; and the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) published a report on its testing of cellular confinement systems (first undertaken in Vicksburg, Mississippi in 1975). The investigations in Mis