Advances in the Application of Deployable Structures in Bridge Engineering

Abstract

With the fast urbanization and the increasing requests of various infrastructures, traditional bridge technologies are more and more constrained in terms of construction speed, logistical effectiveness and versatility to diverse environments. The fold-to-deploy functionality of deployable bridge systems offers promising benefits from transportation and site installation. They are also found to have better performance under emergency conditions and extreme geology, making them a new hot spot of innovation in the bridge engineering. The review article summarizes some recent research advances of deployable structures for use in bridge engineering. This article systematizes the classification of dominant design techniques, namely, origami-based structures, linked-member trusses and scissors-based mechanisms. At the same time, critical mechanical properties related to the design including deformation compatibility of the folding and load carrying functionality of the folded state, dynamic stability during the morphing, as well as the utilization of lightweight high-strength materials and the development of related manufacturing processes are also reviewed. By exemplary summary from temporary emergency, long span adaptive structures, and the special geological fields, the present domestic and foreign research findings are analyzed, while the technical bottlenecks in current research are summarized, and some orientations for future research are proposed, which serves as a preliminary basis for continuous development. We conclude that deployable structures can be seen as revolutionary methodology with a great potential in developing bridge engineering technology.