Bridges are a central element of Ireland’s infrastructure and a seminar on their durability and resilience – and which will featuring speakers including from the US Army Engineer Research and Development Centre, University of Birmingham, University College Dublin, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, Irish Rail, Roughan & O'Donovan and Arup – will take place next week on September 1, 2020.

Future durability issues

Organised by Engineers Ireland – articles on bridges are, consistently, among our members, the most widely read features within the Engineers Journal – this online seminar entitled Bridge Durability and Network Resilience seeks to identify bridge design details that might result in future durability issues and how these details can be improved and the challenges to be addressed.

It will also consider the wider issue of the resilience of the entire transportation network. Additionally, best practice in bridge inspection and monitoring will be discussed including how quickly can the network recover if or when a major incident should occur.

This event should hold strong appeal for engineers including local authority engineers and consulting engineers wanting to gain insight into bridge durability, maintenance best practice and knowledge of how other countries have improved their transport network resilience.

This one-off seminar is organised in association with the SIRMA Research Project – Strengthening Infrastructure Risk Management in the Atlantic Area. Ticket prices are €90 and €120 (Engineers Ireland member/non-member rates).

Bridges on Ireland’s major interurban (MIU) road network are relatively new, but there are durability lessons that can be learned from a review of this bridge stock. In contrast, most of the bridges along Ireland’s rail and non-motorway road network are old and a variety of durability challenges are apparent.

Bridges are a central element of infrastructure and the resilience of a transport network is strongly influenced by their load carrying capacity.

Speakers

  1. Durability of TII Bridges – Liam Duffy, Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII)
  2. Integral Bridges – Ann Marie Gallagher, Arup Consulting Engineers
  3. Durability of Irish Rail Bridges – Cathal Mangan, Irish Rail
  4. Bridge Scour – Cathal Bowe and Shane Creaven, Irish Rail
  5. Resilience in Transportation Networks: Conceptualization and Quantification – Igor Linkov, US Army Engineer Research and Development Centre
  6. Network Resilience – Beatriz Martinez Pastor, University College Dublin
  7. Panel Discussion on Transport Network Resilience – Pat Maher, Transport Infrastructure Ireland; Andrew Quinn, University of Birmingham; Boulent Imam, University of Surrey; Cathal Mangan, Irish Rail; Joe Kelly, Roughan & O'Donovan

To book your ticket and to find out more, please log on to https://www.engineersireland.ie/Events/event/6884