Pedestrian Bridge over the Segre River is a bridge in

Lleida Lleida (, ; Spanish: Lérida ) is a city in the west of Catalonia, Spain. It is the capital city of the province of Lleida. Geographically, it is located in the Catalan Central Depression. It is also the capital city of the Segrià comarca, as ...

Catalonia Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy. Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the north ...

, Spain. In 2000, Lleida City Council organized an open competition for a new

pedestrian bridge A footbridge (also a pedestrian bridge, pedestrian overpass, or pedestrian overcrossing) is a bridge designed solely for pedestrians.''Oxford English Dictionary'' While the primary meaning for a bridge is a structure which links "two points at a ...

. The pedestrian bridge outstands with sober lines, landscape

architectural Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings o ...

features, and delicate details. It is meant to mark the doorway into the Campus and achieve a double function: communication and public space.

Description

The best balance of

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed thr ...

, cost, and performance in service (vibrations) has been reached through the selection of a four spans frame long embedded into three slender piers of

reinforced concrete Reinforced concrete (RC), also called reinforced cement concrete (RCC) and ferroconcrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having hig ...

Abutments An abutment is the substructure at the ends of a bridge span or dam supporting its superstructure. Single-span bridges have abutments at each end which provide vertical and lateral support for the span, as well as acting as retaining walls ...

are integrated into, either existing or new, walls defining a continuous with the built environment of the city. In this way, an integral bridge (without joints at piers) is obtained, in which the deck is fixed elastically and enables an elegant and slender structure.

Translucent In the field of optics, transparency (also called pellucidity or diaphaneity) is the physical property of allowing light to pass through the material without appreciable scattering of light. On a macroscopic scale (one in which the dimensions a ...

composite materials A composite material (also called a composition material or shortened to composite, which is the common name) is a material which is produced from two or more constituent materials. These constituent materials have notably dissimilar chemical or ...

(GFRP)-(

Fiberglass Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass (Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass cloth ...

) have been used in the form of structural floor panels and wall panels for both the railing and the flooring. This high high-performance rural material requires little maintenance, it is lightweight and self-finished and has been designed to allow backlighting.

Construction

The structure is designed with a double composite action. The steel box girder was assembled using temporary support. GFRP Translucent deck panels

References

External links

* * * Fiberglass Pedestrian bridges in Spain Bridges in Catalonia Buildings and structures in Lleida {{Spain-bridge-struct-stub