Light-weight aluminium bridges and bridge decks. An overview of recent applications

The last decades have shown a large increase in the application of aluminium alloys for light-weight bridges. For bridge construction, aluminium alloys have some specific advantages, but also some points of attention. This paper deals with some recent projects of aluminium bridges, and for these projects it is shown how the advantages of aluminium are utilized and how the influences of drawbacks are minimised. Three categories of aluminium bridges are discussed, being all-aluminium (heavy) traffic bridges, aluminium decks for existing steel bridges and special pedestrian and bicycle bridges.