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Articles

Sigrid Adriaenssens DOI: 10.1002/stco.200910005

Laurent Ney
Eric Bodarwe
Vincent Dister

Centner Footbridge bridges the gap between steel

structural design and digital fabrication
The Centner Footbridge at Verviers, Belgium, is a successful design 2 Design considerations
and artifact that links structural optimization and digital steel plate
cutting techniques. This steel structure is designed as a statically The longitudinal and cross-sectional bridge profiles are
determinate beam and has a U-profile in cross-section. The webs determined by three main design considerations:
serving as the safety barriers are assembled from 10 different Firstly, the bridge’s longitudinal profile takes its shape
steel plates that exhibit a laser-cut aperture pattern. The aperture from the bending moment diagram that occurs with the
pattern and the steel plate thicknesses have been structurally main load uniformly distributed over the entire length of the
optimized to deal with the maximum shear forces that occur. For structure. In structural terms, the bridge can be considered
construction purposes, the numerical FE analysis model was as a simply supported U-profile beam as shown in Fig. 3,
translated into a graphic digital model that serves as input data for supported on the abutments of the original trussed bridge.
the steel laser cutter. Once the laser has cut the aperture pattern, To resist the maximum moment optimally, the bridge’s total
the plates are welded together and finished in the fabricator’s
depth increases from 1.5 m at the abutments to a maximum
workshop. The bridge was transported in one piece and installed
of 1.8 m at mid-span.
overnight on site. Recently, the concept of the aperture patterned
Secondly, the design considers the structural engineer-
steel plates has also been successfully applied to other winning
ing and functioning of the bridge as a whole and not as an
design projects. These designs demonstrate that the innovative
accumulation of individual design issues. This approach
link between structural optimization and digital steel cutting tech-
niques offers a new and elegant solution for structural systems stems from the idea of maximum member reduction,
with a large variety of spans and shapes. which favors the introduction of elements that fulfill more
than one function [1]. The bridge has a steel U-profile cross-
section. Besides their structural function, the webs also form
1 Introduction the bridge’s safety barriers. The bottom flange is covered
with a layer of lightweight concrete that serves as a walking
The new steel Centner Footbridge (Fig. 1) over the river surface and houses the ducts requested by the utility com-
Vesdre at the eastern tip of Belgium replaces a derelict panies. In structural terms, this concrete mass adds extra
standard truss bridge which no longer guaranteed public damping to this lightweight footbridge. The handrails form
safety and did not provide ducts for the utility companies the top flanges of the U-profile.
(such as gas, telephone and water). The pedestrian bridge is Thirdly, structural optimization is performed on the U-
situated behind the local Verviers railway station and links profile webs, resulting in a mesh pattern. The steel plates that
two river banks (Robert Centner – Combattants). This constitute the webs are optimized for thickness and mesh
winning design and build project has a span of a 30.160 m, a pattern as a function of the shear force diagram. This opti-
maximum width of 2.45 m and is entirely symmetrical about mization approach results in steel plate webs with varying
its central longitudinal axis (Fig. 2). thickness along their length and – more importantly – with a

Fig. 1. View of Centner Footbridge Fig. 2. Plan and elevation of Centner Footbridge

© Ernst & Sohn Verlag für Architektur und technische Wissenschaften GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin · Steel Construction 2 (2009), No. 1 33
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S. Adriaenssens/L. Ney/E. Bodarwe/V. Dister · Centner Footbridge bridges the gap between steel structural design and digital fabrication

service companies’ pipes and cables. The main load cases

considered are dead, live, snow, wind, temperature influ-
ences and dynamic effects. A nonlinear finite element (FE)
model built using the commercially available software pack-
age SamCef (SamTech) was used for the static and dynamic
analyses and for the design of the bridge according to the
following codes:
– prEN 1991-2 Eurocode 1: Actions on structures – Part 2 –
Traffic loads on bridges
– NBN B03-101Belasting van Bouwwerken: Wegbruggen
– prEN 1993-2 Eurocode 3: Design of Steel structures –
Part 2 – Steel bridges

4 Mesh pattern optimization

Fig. 3. Section through Centner Footbridge
The slender steel unstiffened webs of the U-profile serve as
safety barriers and are assembled from quasi rectangular
plates with a mesh. The basic idea behind the creation and
optimization of the mesh patterns consists of removing the
superfluous structural steel material. The thickness and pat-
tern of the steel web mesh were digitally designed with a stan-
dard CAD (AutoCAD) geometrical modeling software pack-
age. An FE model was used to find the best distribution of
steel mass in the web as well as the maximum allowable open-
ing size (see Fig. 5). In the course of this process the amount
of material is drastically reduced while the basic mesh geo-
Fig. 4. Elevation showing varying mesh pattern metry is improved to allow the shear force resistance to be as
efficient as possible. In this design approach the structural
changing aperture pattern, varying from circular openings at principle is no longer additive, as is often encountered in
the abutments to square ones at mid-span (see Fig. 4). The structural design methodologies, but subtractive.
digital geometric aperture pattern models, which are one of
the output results of this optimization procedure, lend them-
selves excellently as input data for a digital laser cutter.

3 Structural steelwork

For reasons of economy, the bridge is supported as a stati-

cally determinate beam on the existing abutments of the
original bridge. The U-profile cross-section has 30 mm thick
steel handrails (acting as the U-profile top flanges) that resist
the compression force resulting from the longitudinal bend-
ing moment. The steel mesh safety barriers (i. e. the webs of
the U-profile) resist all the shear forces that occur. These
web plates themselves vary in height from 1.1 m at the abut-
ments to 1.4 m at mid-span and can therefore be consid-
ered as being rectangular panels within the angle limit of
10° as specified by Eurocode 3 [2]. Their thickness ranges
from 18 mm at the abutments to 15 mm and 12 mm at mid-
Fig. 5. FE model showing Von Mises stresses
span. At the supports the slender web plates are stiffened
laterally by 20 mm thick diaphragms as required by Euro-
code 3. The bottom flange of the U-profile, which consists of
an 8 mm steel plate with 12 mm transverse stiffeners every 5 Digital fabrication techniques
1.5 m, resists the tensile force resulting from the longitudinal
bending moment. In the workshop the entire 16.5 tonne steel The CAD modeling package produces a file in Drawing Ex-
structure was welded together to create one single piece change Format (DXF) that contains all the geometric infor-
30.160 m long. Steel grade S 355 J2G3 was used through- mation about the mesh. This DXF file enables data interop-
out. The lightweight concrete (maximum 900 kg/m3) deck, erability between AutoCAD and the laser cutter operating
which adds to the structure’s damping, was cast in situ on program used by the steel fabricator and contractor Baeck
top of the U-profile’s bottom flange. Water on the deck drains en Jansen, Belgium. In the workshop the solid flat steel plates
away thanks to a 2.5 % fall from the center to both sides of are laid on a steel grid and cut with a laser that directs a high
the deck, where drainage points are positioned every 1.5 m. energy light beam. The laser energy is absorbed by the steel,
The concrete deck houses ducts to accommodate the local where it is converted into heat that melts away the material.

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S. Adriaenssens/L. Ney/E. Bodarwe/V. Dister · Centner Footbridge bridges the gap between steel structural design and digital fabrication

Fig. 6. The 30 m span bridge welded to form one piece in

the workshop (© Baeck en Jansen) Fig. 8. Stalhille lifting footbridge with mesh barriers

Fig. 7. 30 m Centner Footbridge transported by 15 tonne Fig. 9. Rendering, Spoor Noord: enclosed overpass with
truck and erected in one piece by 200 tonne crane mesh plates

At the same time carbon dioxide is forced into the steel to

blow away the material and vapor and produce a high-qual-
ity, clean cut. The laser cuts are accurate to 0.5 mm since
there is no laser wear. The main advantages of laser cutting
over mechanical cutting are on the one hand the lack of
physical contact, thus avoiding contamination of the ma-
terial or the cutter, and on the other hand the reduction in
costly manpower. These advantages must been seen against
the need for high energy input. Once the machine has fin-
ished the cutting, the apertures are removed from the steel
plate. Within minutes the cut steel plates are cold enough Fig. 10. Rendering, Spoor Noord: interior view
to touch; the waste material is recycled. The laser-cut steel
plates were assembled in this case by conventional work- Antwerp, Belgium (Figs. 9 and 10). These bridges show that
shop welding to form one complete bridge (Fig. 6). Once the the innovative approach presented in this article offers a new
finishes were applied to the bridge it was transported in one and elegant solution for pedestrian bridges with a large
piece overnight on a 15 tonne lorry (loading surface 31 ¥ variety of spans and forms.
2.6 m) and lifted onto the old abutments with a 200 tonne
crane as shown in Fig. 7. This construction method has References
caused little or no traffic disruption.
[1] Brunetta V, Patteeuw: V 06 Ney and Partners. Freedom of
6 Conclusion form-finding. Vlaams Architectuurinstituut: Brugge, 2005.
[2] Eurocode 3: Design of steel structures – Part 1-5: General –
Strength and stability of planar plated structures without
The bridge successfully opened to the public in 2006. The
transverse loading.
pedestrian walking on the bridge experiences a subtle, vary-
ing mesh pattern and a delicate play of light and shade on the Keywords: footbridge; digital design; laser cutter; mesh; pattern
deck on a sunny day. The observer moving toward or away
from the bridge experiences an ever-changing visual effect
Authors:
caused by the apparent superposition of the two patterned
Prof. Dr. Sigrid Adriaenssens, Department of Mechanics of Materials
barriers. The structural optimization method that removes
and Constructions, Faculty of engineering, Vrije Universiteit Brussel,
all unnecessary steel web material and results in a mesh Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil
pattern design has been advantageously used in the design and Environmental Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544;
of other small- and medium-span footbridges such as the Laurent Ney, MSc Eng, Managing Director; Eric Bodarwe, MSc Eng, senior
26 m span Stalhille bridge, Belgium (Fig. 8), and the compe- project engineer; Vincent Dister, MSc Eng, senior project engineer, Ney and
tition-winning 70 m span enclosed overpass at Spoor Noord, Partners, Chaussée de la Hulpe 181, 1170 Brussels, Belgium

Steel Construction 2 (2009), No. 1 35