Comparative analysis of slab frame bridges and soil-steel composite bridges crossing pedestrian walkways: A cost and climate perspective

Book chapter, 2025

Bridges serve as critical infrastructure for transporting traffic over various obstacles, including pedestrian walkways. When building bridges over pedestrian walkways, there is often a demand in terms of a free opening for the people crossing under the bridge. For these kind of bridges, concrete slab frame bridges (CSFB) and soil-steel composite bridges (SSCB) have been commonly used solutions in Sweden. When choos-ing between different solutions it is important to choose the best performing solution. As long as both solutions fulfil all the structural requirements, the difference would be in cost and climate impact. In this study, three different case studies in terms of different demands for free opening for the pedestrian walkway have been investigated. Set-based design has been used to find optimal solutions for the two different bridge solutions. The result from this study indicates that there is no significant evidence of which solution is preferable between the alternatives.