Department of Civil Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Brovej, Building 118, 2800, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark.
Department of Major Bridges International, COWI A/S, Parallelvej 2, 2800, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark.
Nat Commun. 2020 Jun 1;11(1):2735. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-16599-6.
Girder design for suspension bridges has remained largely unchanged for the past 60 years. However, for future super-long bridges, aiming at record-breaking spans beyond 3 km, the girder weight is a limiting factor. Here we report on a design concept, inspired by computational morphogenesis procedures, demonstrating possible weight savings in excess of 28 percent while maintaining manufacturability. Although morphogenesis procedures are rarely used in civil engineering, often due to complicated designs, we demonstrate that even a crude extraction of the main features of the optimized design, followed by a simple parametric optimization, results in hitherto unseen weight reductions. We expect that further studies of the proposed design, as well as applications to other structures, will lead to even greater weight savings and reductions in carbon footprint in a construction industry, currently responsible for 39 percent of the world's CO emissions.
悬索桥的梁设计在过去的 60 年中基本保持不变。然而，对于未来的超长大桥，目标是打破 3 公里以上的纪录跨度，梁的重量是一个限制因素。在这里，我们报告了一个设计概念，该概念受计算形态发生程序的启发，展示了在保持可制造性的同时，超过 28%的可能减重。尽管形态发生程序在土木工程中很少使用，通常是由于设计复杂，但我们证明，即使是对优化设计的主要特征进行简单的提取，然后进行简单的参数优化，也能带来前所未有的减重效果。我们预计，对所提出的设计的进一步研究，以及对其他结构的应用，将导致建筑行业在目前占世界二氧化碳排放量 39%的情况下，实现更大的减重和碳足迹减少。
