The Traditional Approach

Large infrastructure projects these days might consist of a main crossing along with multiple roads and interchanges. During the design pursuit stages, teams need to collaborate across multiple locations and disciplines in order to prepare technical and financial proposals against a field of strong competitors. If successful, the challenges faced during the detailed design, fabrication and construction stages are no less daunting.

For instance, an experienced bridge engineer might look at the proposed highway alignments and establish suitable locations for the substructure and put forward some viable superstructure options that reflect the corresponding span lengths as well as the type of construction that would be appropriate for the given location.

In order to validate these concepts, a number of separate analysis models would be developed, from the very simple continuous beam models to the more complex 3D finite element models, as needed as the design…

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