Aberfeldy Footbridge

The most spectacular application example to date is perhaps the Aberfeldy footbridge over the river Tay in Scotland (see Fig. 11.4). This bridge is 113-m long, has a deck width of 2.2 m, and a main span of 113 m [4]. The entire deck structure, hand rails, and A-frame towers are pultruded composites, and the cable stays are Kevlar ropes. The deck structure is assembled from a modular system of pultruded 6-m long, hollow components, which consist of 70 percent by weight of E glass and 30 percent pigmented isophtalic polyester resin. 

Figure 11.4 The all-composite Aberfeldy footbridge over the river Tay in Scotland. Photograph published courtesy of Maunsell Structural Plastics Ltd...

Skinner, J. M. (2009), A critical analysis of the Aberfeldy footbridge, Scotland , Proceedings of Bridge Engineering 2 Conference 2009, April 2009, University of Bath, Bath, UK. 

Stratford, T. (2008), Aberfeldy Footbridge after 16 years . Long Term In-service Performance of ERPs in Construction Seminar, 1 July 2008, Arup Campus, Birmingham, UK. 

All plastic composite materials are already used in some challenging civil engineering applications, such as, in a composite footbridge (Aberfeldy, Scotland, UK 1992) and road bridges (Stonehouse, Gloucestershire, UK 1994). 

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