Small sample size is a problem often encountered in laboratory life, but scientists at the National Physical Laboratory have tackled an altogether different problem with their biggest sample yet – a 14 tonne bridge.
The 14 tonne bridge is NPL's largest sample to date
The ‘sample’ is a 14 tonne footbridge that is 20m long and 5m high and has been used to allow access from one side of the NPL site to the other for the last 46 years. With redevelopment of the NPL site this bridge has become redundant. Rather than demolish the bridge, and in the spirit of recycling, NPL scientists have used the opportunity to run a project using the old bridge to improve civil engineering structures.
The bridge will be used as a demonstrator to try out different techniques for monitoring structures for a government project to encourage UK industry and UK infrastructure to use monitoring to maximise the lifetime and minimise maintenance costs for civil engineering structures.
During the three year project the bridge will be loaded until it cracks, repaired using new composite repair methods and then retested. The opportunity to have a large scale structure that can be abused in this way whilst being monitored is a once in a lifetime event and will provide evidence for the cost saving benefits of structural health monitoring.
Visit
the Laboratory News archive
