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Damaged bridges flex and twist to prevent collapse

Bridges made from connected steel frameworks can sometimes survive unexpected damage by activating hidden structural responses.
By
  1. Katherine A. Cashell

    1. Katherine A. Cashell is in the Department of Civil, Environmental & Geomatic Engineering, University College London, London, WC1E 6BT, UK.

Like a spider web that flexes to compensate for a broken strand1,2, steel truss bridges, which are built from a framework of connected elements, can sometimes withstand the failure of a load-bearing component by activating hidden structural responses. However, predicting whether a truss bridge will survive damage depends on many interacting factors, from geometry to the way in which the elements are bolted together and the choice of materials. How a bridge has been used — or overused — and maintained during its lifetime also has an important role. Writing in Nature, Reyes-Suárez et al.3 report six ‘secondary resistance mechanisms’ that might enable these bridges to avoid collapse. By combining physical experiments on a scaled-down railway bridge with simulations, the authors show that a combination of flexing and twisting can safely redistribute the forces acting on a truss bridge after it loses a load-bearing element. The researchers’ findings offer a framework for designing robust bridges in an era of ageing infrastructure and environmental pressures.

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Nature 645, 47-48 (2025)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-02529-3

References

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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