Storms and other extreme weather events are a major threat to the safety of railroad substructures and major railroad bridges. Flood or surge induced bridge collapses, such as the North Sioux City rail bridge collapse in June 2024, can cause long-term disruption to the railroad network and significant financial losses (Jones, 2024, KTIV news). From 1999-2010, 29 railroad bridge failures are recorded in the US (Joy et al, 2013, FRA Report). 64% of these failures are caused by scour and hydraulic hazard, leading to significant infrastructure and operational risk exposure annually.
This project will address the challenge through development of proof-of-concept truss bridge designs that integrate origami and kirigami principles. The bridge will have a modular design, allowing it to cover different lengths for different scenarios. Using kirigami truss bridges to rapidly replace damaged railroad bridges can mitigate the disruption and reduce the financial loss.
First, we will work with our industry partners to understand the loading and bridge replacement scenarios typical for railroad environments and develop a dedicated simulation platform with easy-to-use user interface (UI) to evaluate the global strength of the proposed kirigami truss bridge system. This simulation platform will be developed based on the PI’s existing simulation package (Zhu and Filipov 2024). The simulation will enable users to change the number of sections, the member cross-section, section geometry, and load to capture realistic railroad operation scenarios. This simulation enables us to work with industry partners to identify the best designs for realistic railroad applications.
Next, we will fabricate one reduced-scale section of the proposed modular kirigami truss bridge using metallic members. The target size of this reduced scale section is a 4ft long cube with a 1:5 scale down ratio. In the future, multiple sections can be built for a full prototype with versatile lengths.
The outcomes will help us evaluate the potential to replace wash-out bridges with a safe a temporary kirigami bridge that allows recovery of operations while working on longer-term solutions. The development can make the railroad network more resilient and reduce financial loss from operational disruption.