SHELL BRIDGES - AND A NEW SPECIMEN MADE OF STAINLESS STEEL

Do double-curved shell bridges make sense, or should a bridge not rather be a linear structure? At the very least shell bridges stimulate the senses and they promise the advantages of shells, namely minimized weight, elegance and stability. When we look around, we detect quite a number of shell bridges in different shapes and made of different materials. In this paper, first several categories of existing shell bridges are described and discussed. Then a shell that forms both structure and deck, the stainless-steel footbridge in Ditzingen, Germany, is introduced. The double-curved shell spans 28m with a plate thickness of only 20mm. Laser cut holes in the shell not only make the structure lighter and translucent, but also the remaining steel work visualizes the path of the principal membrane forces, thus making the bridge more understandable.