New technologies of steel/concrete composite bridges

Steel plates have high tensile strength but are relatively vulnerable against buckling caused by compressive forces. However, when steel plates are combined with concrete, the resistance against buckling increases and heavy stiffeners are not necessary, which makes steel bridges economical and competitive against concrete bridges. New structural forms of steel/concrete composite bridges have been actively sought and developed in Japan and several actual bridge projects have been presented in this paper, New ideas for the future steel/concrete composite bridges utilizing concrete filled steel girders are also introduced and proved to be feasible and economical by analyses, experiments and trial designs. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.