Extreme weather events, including severe storms, pose significant risks to the safety and resilience of railroad substructures and major railroad bridges. Flooding and storm surge events have contributed to bridge failures that disrupt rail operations and generate substantial economic impacts. A railway bridge collapsed in Seville, Illinois in 2013 sending multiple cars into the Spoon River. Between 1999 and 2010, 29 railroad bridge failures were documented in the United States (Joy et al., 2013, FRA Report), with 64% attributed to scour and hydraulic hazards. These failures highlight the persistent vulnerability of railroad infrastructure and the significant operational and economic risks associated with extreme weather-induced damage.
Origami-inspired deployable structures represent a promising field of research in structural engineering, offering innovative solutions for the design and development of versatile next generation structural systems. Incorporating bio-inspired design principles from nature provides a unique pathway toward realizing such deployable systems. While deployable origami structures offer geometric transformability, compact transportation, and reusability advantages, implementation remains limited due to absence of frameworks unifying structural reliability with quantitative environmental evaluation. This research establishes a reproducible framework integrating experimental structural performance analysis, machine learning-based damage detection, and comparative life cycle assessment for a reusable temporary railroad bridge system.
This project will continue from Phase 1 to leverage an experimental approach informed by a computational and experimental study to investigate a modular pill bug inspired kirigami temporary railroad bridge system, a plate-based modular deployable structure that leverages origami mechanics and is morphologically inspired by pill bugs. In addition, life cycle and damage sensitivity assessments will provide understanding into using modular origami-inspired structures for temporarily railway systems.