Gravel roads are essential for economic development as they facilitate the movement of people, transportation of goods and services, and promote cultural and social development. They typically connect sparsely populated rural areas to urban centres, providing essential access for residents and entrepreneurs. Maintaining these roads to an acceptable level of service is crucial for the efficient and safe transportation of goods and services. However, substantial maintenance investmentis required, yet resources are limited. Gravel roads are prone to dust, potholes, corrugations, rutting and loose gravel. They deteriorate faster than paved roads, and their failure development is affected by traffic action and physical, geometric and climatic factors. Thus, more condition monitoring and proper road condition assessment are necessary for dynamic maintenance planning to reach efficiency and effectiveness using objective, data-driven condition assessment methods to ensure all-year-round access. However, objective data-driven methods (DDMs) are not frequently used for gravel road condition assessment, and where they have been applied, the practical implementation is limited. Instead, visual windshield assessment and manual methods are predominant. Visual assessments are unreliable and susceptible to human judgement errors, while manual methods are time-consuming and labour-intensive. Maintenance activities are predetermined despite dynamic maintenance needs, and the planning is based on historical failure data rather than the actual road condition. This thesis establishes a data-driven approach to gravel road maintenance describing the systematic assessment of the gravel road condition and collection of the condition data to ensure efficient and effective maintenance planning. This thesis uses a design research methodology based on a literature review, concept development, interview study and field experiments. A holistic approach is proposed for data-driven maintenance of gravel roads encompassing objective condition data collection, processing, analysing, and interpreting the findings for obtaining reliable information concerning the condition to gravel road decision support by utilising the opportunities presented by technological advancements, particularly sensor technology. Then, decision-making is primarily influenced by the objectively collected gravel road condition data rather than the evaluator’s perception or experience. The successful implementation of a data-driven approach depends on the quality of the collected data; therefore, data relevance and quality are emphasised in this thesis. The lack of data quality and relevance hinders effective data utilisation, leading to less precisionin decision-making and ineffective decisions. Furthermore, the thesis proposes a participatory data-driven approach for unpaved road condition monitoring, allowing road users to be part of the maintenance process and providing an efficient and effective alternative for collecting road condition data and accomplishing broad coverage at minimum cost. A top-down iiapproach for data-driven gravel road condition classification is proposed to achieve an objective assessment to address the lack of readily available quality and relevant condition data. The established data-driven approach to gravel road maintenance is evaluated and verified with field experiments on three gravel roads in Växjö municipality, Southern Sweden. The research findings indicate that properly implementing a data-driven approach to gravel road maintenance would ensure efficient and effective condition assessment and classification, which are a basis for a maintenance management system of gravel roads and enable road maintainers and authorities to achieve cost-effective decision-making. / Sustainable maintenance of gravel road

Gravel roads connect sparse populations and provide highways for agriculture and the transport of forest goods. Gravel roads are an economical choice where traffic volume is low. In Sweden, 21% of all public roads are state-owned gravel roads, covering over 20,200 km. In addition, there are some 74,000 km of gravel roads and 210,000 km of forest roads that are owned by the private sector. The Swedish Transport Administration (Trafikverket) rates the condition of gravel roads according to the severity of irregularities (e.g. corrugations and potholes), dust, loose gravel, and gravel cross-sections. This assessment is carried out during the summertime when roads are free of snow. One of the essential parameters for gravel road assessment is loose gravel. Loose gravel can cause a tire to slip, leading to a loss of driver control.  Assessment of gravel roads is carried out subjectively by taking images of road sections and adding some textual notes. A cost-effective, intelligent, and objective method for road assessment is lacking. Expensive methods, such as laser profiler trucks, are available and can offer road profiling with high accuracy. These methods are not applied to gravel roads, however, because of the need to maintain cost-efficiency.  In this thesis, we explored the idea that, in addition to machine vision, we could also use machine hearing to classify the condition of gravel roads in relation to loose gravel. Several suitable classical supervised learning and convolutional neural networks (CNN) were tested. When people drive on gravel roads, they can make sense of the road condition by listening to the gravel hitting the bottom of the car. The more we hear gravel hitting the bottom of the car, the more we can sense that there is a lot of loose gravel and, therefore, the road might be in a bad condition. Based on this idea, we hypothesized that machines could also undertake such a classification when trained with labeled sound data. Machines can identify gravel and non-gravel sounds. In this thesis, we used traditional machine learning algorithms, such as support vector machines (SVM), decision trees, and ensemble classification methods. We also explored CNN for classifying spectrograms of audio sounds and images in gravel roads. Both supervised learning and CNN were used, and results were compared for this study. In classical algorithms, when compared with other classifiers, ensemble bagged tree (EBT)-based classifiers performed best for classifying gravel and non-gravel sounds. EBT performance is also useful in reducing the misclassification of non-gravel sounds. The use of CNN also showed a 97.91% accuracy rate. Using CNN makes the classification process more intuitive because the network architecture takes responsibility for selecting the relevant training features. Furthermore, the classification results can be visualized on road maps, which can help road monitoring agencies assess road conditions and schedule maintenance activities for a particular road. / <p>Due to unforeseen circumstances the seminar was postponed from May 7 to 28, as duly stated in the new posting page.</p>

Syfte: Återkommande fel och problem i byggprojekt är idag vanligt förekommande. Erfarenhetsåterföring är något som företag kan dra stor nytta av, då ett arbete inom ämnet kan reducera onödiga kostnader samt öka ett företags konkurrenskraftighet på marknaden. Rapporten studerar ett konsultföretags arbetssätt med erfarenhetsåterföring och vid slutfört arbete dras en slutsats om svårigheter samt förbättringsmöjligheter kring ämnet. Metod: Den valda forskningsstrategin är i form av en fallstudie gentemot konsultföretaget. Intervjuer utförs med hjälp av företagets tjänstemän på konstruktion- och arkitektavdelningen. Dessutom upprättas en dokumentanalys på fallföretaget och en litteraturstudie kring ämnet erfarenhetsåterföring. Resultat: Studien visar att företaget har verktyg för ett arbetssätt gentemot erfarenhetsåterföring. Dock har med otydliga krav ifrån ledningen att kontinuerligt arbeta med erfarenhetsåterföring har resulterat i att det inte sker till en stor utsträckning. Studien visar att bland annat att tidsbrist och bristande ansvarsområden har resulterats i att erfarenhetsåterföring inte är högt prioriterat. Mycket av den kunskapsdelningen som sker idag sker under spontana tillfällen under fikaraster och liknande. Analys: Analysen visar att erfarenhetsåterföring är en viktig del för ett företags utveckling. Genom att ta vara på kunskaper kan både tid och pengar sparas in genom att inte uppfinna hjulet på nytt. Det kan också öka kvalitén på produkten. De hinder som står i vägen för ett effektivt användande av erfarenhetsåterföring handlar bland annat om att medarbetare saknar incitament, främst tid till att genomföra erfarenhetsåterföring. Studien har visat att intresset finns där men genom otydlighet har erfarenhetsåterföring fallit mellan stolarna. Genom att fördela ansvaret, implementera erfarenhetsåterföring som en given del i arbetsprocessen och ställa tydliga krav på vad som förväntas av medarbetarna kan kunskapsdelning bli framgångsfaktor för ett företag. Diskussion: Rapporten har visat att arbetet med erfarenhetsåterföring kan vara väldigt varierande beroende på vem som är uppdragsledare för projektet. Det är många gånger upp till personen i sig i vilken utsträckning som erfarenhetsåterföring ska ske, vilket kan leda till att det fungerar väldigt olika från grupp till grupp men också från kontor till kontor. En annan diskussionsfråga är hur vida pandemin har påverkat erfarenhetsåterföring. Idag arbetar flera hemifrån vilket har gjort att arbetsstrukturen har förändrats och kanske inte hunnit anpassa sig till det nya rutinerna. / Purpose: Recurring errors and problems in construction projects are common. Experience feedback is something that companies can benefit greatly from, as work in the subject can reduce unnecessary costs and increase a company's competitiveness in the market. The study will investigate a consulting company’s approach towards experience feedback and on completed work draw a conclusion about difficulties and opportunities for improvement on the subject. Method: The chosen research strategy is in the form of a case study towards the consulting company. Interviews are conducted with the help of the company's officials in the design and architecture department. In addition, a document analysis is drawn up at the case company and a literature study on the topic of experience reversal. Results: The study shows that the company has tools for a way of working towards experience feedback. However, with unclear requirements from management to continuously work with experience feedback has resulted in this not happening to a great extent. The study shows that a lack of time and a lack of responsibility has resulted in experience feedback not being a high priority. Much of the knowledge sharing that takes place today takes place during spontaneous occasions during coffee breaks and so on. Analysis: The analysis shows that experience feedback is an important part of a company's development. By taking advantage of previous knowledge, both time and money can be saved by not reinventing the wheel. It can also increase the quality of the product. The obstacles that stand in the way of effective use of experience feedback include the lack of incentives for employees, mainly the time to carry out experience feedback. The study has shown that the interest is there, but through ambiguity, experience reversal has fallen through the cracks. By distributing responsibility, implementing experience feedback as a given part of the work process and setting clear requirements for what is expected of employees, knowledge sharing can become a success factor for a company. Discussion: The report has shown that the work with experience feedback can be very varied depending on who is the project leader for the project. It is often up to the person itself to what extent experience feedback should take place, which can lead to it working very differently from group to group but also from office to office. Another question is how much the pandemic has affected experience feedback. Today, several people work from home, which has meant that the work structure has changed and may not have had time to adapt to the new routines.

The snow galleries along the Iron ore railway line in northern Sweden have had major problems in recent years due to increasingly large snow loads. Despite great efforts reducing the loads by shoveling off the snow, several of the galleries have been damaged. Due to these incidents, the Swedish Transport Administration (TRA) has asked Luleå University of Technology (LTU) to make an evaluation of galleries 4, 9 and 13A in the neighborhood of Vassijauri. TRA has asked for a way to monitor the load on these galleries with a trigger system that gives a warning message when the galleries are exposed to a critical load. Measurement systems have been installed in galleries 9 and 13A during the autumn of 2021 such that the snow load in one mainframe per gallery could be monitored. In this thesis, work has been performed by assessing how much snow load each gallery can handle before it collapses. The restrictions for the project are set based on the drawings that is available from the TRA's information database, BaTMan. A literature study is performed on snow load, how it was changing over the years, both back and forth, how snow load is calculated according to today’s regulations and how the density of the snow affects the intensity of the snow load. The distribution of the snow on the galleries has been performed based on the Eurocodes and National Standards. Models of the galleries in two- dimensional have been created for all frames in all the galleries to find the weakest frame in order to compute the critical load. Some of the frames are not stable when they are analyzed as individual members, therefore the decision was made to also construct 3D models to see how the cobweb effect influenced the galleries' capacity. Before the main frames have reached their full capacity, the secondary construction elements (roof beams) have been damaged and therefore has no major collapse taken place. From the 3D model, it is clear that the secondary construction that lacks capacity. The critical frames are completely different in the 3D model as compared to the 2D model as the stability of the entire gallery changes due to the cobweb effect (the load re-distribution between the neighboring elements, due to both the 3D interaction and the cable link effect) and, as a result, the capacity of the main frames is increased significantly. The study visits to gallery 9 and 13A have been made to gain an understanding on how snow accumulates on and around the galleries and how well the Eurocodes correspond to reality. The pattern shows that the snow drifts from the mountains towards the valley over the galleries, which forms accumulations against the walls. The snow accumulates to a large extent where the galleries geometry changes from high to low angled walls. At locations where the gallery has a wide roof between the grounds, the snow accumulates to a much greater degree compared to the locations with narrow roofs on high-angle walls, see, Figure 73. To be able to improve the model and to obtain more accurate critical loads, it is necessary to review the structures to obtain more precise dimensions, attachments, geometry and exact distances. In the current state, the design plans and descriptions of the galleries are incomplete as modifications and repairs have been made without proper documentation. Hence difficulty arises in the accurate evaluation of their exact capacity. / Snögallerierna längs malmbanan har haft stora problem de senaste åren på grund av stora snölaster. Flera snögallerier har skadats och behövt repareras trots stora insatser av skottning, i samband med snöfall. Trafikverket har efter dessa händelser bett LTU att göra en grundlig utvärdering av gallerierna 4, 9 och 13A. De har efterfrågat ett sätt att följa belastningen av dessa gallerier med ett triggersystem som gör att Trafikverket får ett varningsmeddelande innan gallerierna utsätts för större laster än vad de klarar. Mätsystem har monterats i galleri 9 och 13A under hösten 2021 för att kunna följa snöbelastningen på en huvudram per galleri. I detta examensarbete har ett arbete med att göra en utvärdering av hur mycket snölast varje galleri klarar innan det går sönder. Begränsningarna för projektet är satta utifrån hur mycket information som fanns tillgänglig i Trafikverkets informationsbas BaTMan. En litteraturstudie är gjord på snölast, dess förändring i tid både bakåt och framåt, hur snölasten beräknas enligt regler idag och hur densiteten av snön påverkar för snölastens intensitet. Antaganden om hur mycket snölast varje del av galleriet upptog och dess fördelning gjordes utifrån eurokoder och de nationella standarderna. Modeller av gallerierna i 2D har gjorts för alla ramar i alla gallerierna för att hitta den svagaste ramen och utifrån den ta fram den kritiska lasten. När insikten om att några av ramarna inte är stabila vid enskild analys och att kapaciteten av dessa är extremt låg bestämdes det att modeller i 3D skulle göras för att se om spindelnätseffekten påverkade galleriernas kapacitet. De sekundära konstruktionerna har gett vika innan huvudramarna nått upp till sin fulla kapacitet och därför har hittills har ingen större kollaps skett. I 3D modellen syns det tydligt att det är främst den sekundära konstruktionen som saknar kapacitet. Den kritiska ramen blir en helt annan i 3D modellen än för 2D modellen då stabiliteten för hela galleriet förändras på grund av spindelnätseffekten. Det är tydligt att kapaciteten på ramarna för alla gallerierna ökar på grund av spindelnätseffekten. Studiebesök vid galleri 9 och 13A har genomförts för att få en förståelse för hur snön ackumuleras på och kring gallerierna och hur väl eurokoderna stämmer överens med verkligheten. Det visade sig att snön driver från bergen ner mot dalen över gallerierna vilket bildar driver upp mot väggarna. Snön ansamlas till stor grad där gallerierna ändrar geometriskt form från hög till låg vinkel på väggar. Där galleriet har ett brett tak samlas snön i mycket högre grad än vid smala tak på väggar med hög vinkel, se Figure 73. För att i framtiden kunna göra en bra modell och få fram mer exakta kritiska laster krävs det en noggrann genomgång av alla konstruktioner för att få fram dimensioner, infästningar och exakta avstånd. Den dokumentation som finns på gallerierna idag är ofullständiga, på grund av att reparationer och modifikationer ej har dokumenterats. Detta gör det svårt att göra en noggrann och tillförlitlig utvärdering.

Vibration serviceability in the design of footbridges is gathering enormous prominence as comfort restrictions get enhanced. Comfort verifications are often becoming critical when considering human induced dynamic loading on lightweight structures, which are increasing in slenderness and flexibility. The aim of this work was to build up understanding about the running load effects on the response of footbridges and proving that it could imply a critical load case that would require verification. Additionally, the accuracy of potential models to estimate the structural response was evaluated. Finally, aiming for a practical application, this work provides a step forward towards the possibility of adopting a simplified design methodology to be included in the future guidelines and an insight into the potential effects of a marathon event. While the walking load case is a well-studied phenomenon, not much attention has been paid to the running induced excitation. Guidelines motivate that there is no need for verification and exceptionally, some get to suggest a time domain load model definition. The interaction phenomena as well as the effects of groups of runners in the dynamic response of the structure remain still unknown. Limiting the work to the vertical component of the response and force and based on a large set of additional assumptions, experimental and numerical analyses were performed. Three footbridges were tested and subjected to tests involving different motion forms; jumping, walking and running. On the other hand, the time domain load models available in the literature were applied accounting for the spatial displacement of each of the pedestrians along the footbridge. In the most advanced of the models, aiming to account for interaction effects, the subjects were modelled as independent mechanical systems. The results derived from the experimental study helped characterizing the running load effect on the footbridge's response and proved that there may be structures in which running could comprise a critical load case. Furthermore, the numerical analyses allowed to verify the accuracy of the suggested models and the improvement that the human structure interaction effects involve. The analyses resulted in complementary sets of conclusions that built up understanding about the running load effects on footbridges; such as the sensitivity of the estimated response to the structure's modal properties and the influence of the parameters that characterize the running motion. Finally, the suggested simplified design methodology was able to estimate, with a very reasonable error for the current case study, the calculated response by the most accurate of the models. To sum up, this work serves as a motivation to include the running load case in the guidelines and establishes a starting point for further research and simplified design methodologies based on the strategy and models suggested in this work.

Infrastructure projects are today major contributors to global warming. However, various strategies for reduction of greenhouse gas emission are available, as described in sustainability assessment schemes and performed in infrastructure projects. Beyond the choice of methodology, greenhouse gas reduction represents an important challenge, namely to engage involved actors. The establishment of a common sustainability policy, reflected in procurement requirements could be a solution. However, often in subject of complications such as misunderstandings or increased cost. Impres, a research project aiming to streamline the process of greenhouse gas reduction in the infrastructure sector, conducts case studies around the world in which useful methods and examples are assimilated. In cooperation with Impres, the present report includes the case study of California High-Speed Rail (CHSR). The aim of this report is to compare strategies for greenhouse gas reduction of sustainability assessment schemes for infrastructure projects, and evaluate the feasibility as procurement requirements. Furthermore, to identify corresponding processes of greenhouse gas reduction in the case study of CHSR, as well as revealing important factors towards realization. The course of work involves a study of the schemes Envision, BREEAM Infrastructure, CEEQUAL, IS Rating System as well as the standard PAS 2080. Regarding the case study, the sustainability policy, procurement requirements and project reports are the main used sources. Moreover, qualitative interviews with involved actors have been performed in California. Finally, to create a comparative matrix for greenhouse gas reduction processes, standards ISO and PAS 2080 have been reviewed. The results show that greenhouse gas criteria of the studied schemes not are mandatory to perform in anyone but PAS 2080. Which means that further requisites might be needed in order for the schemes to be useful as procurement requirements. Furthermore, the outlining of processes reveals a weakness in the setting of a greenhouse gas reference point, and while every scheme includes a greenhouse gas quantity assessment, there is a difference in the priority of reduction. Regarding CHSR, an exclaimed policy goal is to perform climate neutral construction. While procurement requirements are limited to quantification of emitted greenhouse gases and the use of effective construction machinery, which is insufficient to meet the goal. Nevertheless, the Authority in charge is performing CO2 compensating measures, such as planting trees. Finally, a variety of driving forces, success factors and challenges for realizing greenhouse gas reduction have been identified. For example, personal motivation and legislation as driving forces. Whereas, sustainability as a core mission, experience and communication are seen as success factors, and resistance to transfer sustainability goals to procurement is an exclaimed challenge. As a conclusion, sustainability assessment schemes do have certain processes for greenhouse gas reduction in common. However, they present criteria with different degrees of obligation, affecting feasibility as procurement requirements. In CHSR, similar processes are found, where further reduction of greenhouse gases can be achieved, especially by an optimized choice of construction materials. In the end, personal motivation seems to be an important factor for introducing and realizing greenhouse gas reduction goals in infrastructure projects. / Impres

In Sweden, it is Eurocode 2 which forms the basis for performing a design of concrete structures, in which methods can be found treating the subject of restrained concrete members and cracking in the serviceability limit state. In the code, both detailed hand calculations procedures as well as simplified methods are described. Several proposal of how to treat base restrained structures can be found in other codes and reports. Some state that the procedure given in Eurocode 2 is on the unsafe side as the method relies on stabilized cracking, while some say that the method is over conservative as the restraining actions will prevent the cracks from opening. As these methods are analysed closer and further tested, it is obtained that they all yield different results under the same assumptions. Most of them are within a similar span, and the deviation arises as the various methods takes different aspect into consideration. One method yields a result which is considerably higher than all other, denoted the Chalmers method. As this method is taught at the technical institute of Gothenburg (Chalmers), the large deviation have caused some confusion among Swedish engineers. As the methods are compared to numerical analyses, it is found that the detailed calculation procedure stated in Eurocode 2 yields fairly good prediction of crack widths for lower levels of strain, while for high levels of strain it is over conservative. The Chalmers method seems to underestimate the number of cracks which occur, and thus give rise to the deviating results. It is further found that in relation to more detailed hand calculations, the simplified procedure stated in Eurocode 2 may not always be on the safe side. The procedure is only valid within a certain range which may be exceeded depending on the magnitude of the load and choice of various design parameters. The effect creep have on base restrained structures subjected to long term loads such as shrinkage is further discussed and analysed numerically. Various hand calculation methods suggest that creep have a positive influence on base restrained structures in the sense that the crack width become smaller. The numerical results indicates that this is indeed the case, however, uncertainties of these analyses are considered to be large in relation to the short term analyses. / I Sverige är det Eurokod 2 som används som basis för dimensionering av betongkonstruktioner, i vilken metoder som beskriver sprickkontroll i bruksgränsstadiet för betong utsatt för tvångskrafter återfinns. Både detaljerade handberäkningsmetoder och förenklade metoder beskrivs. I olika koder och rapporter återfinns ett flertal förslag till hur detta problem ska hanteras. Vissa påstår att metoderna som anges i Eurokod 2 är på osäkra sidan då dessa förlitar sig på stabiliserad sprickbildning, medan andra menar att Eurokod 2 är för konservativ då inspänningen kommer förhindra att sprickorna öppnar sig. Då metoderna analyseras noggrannare och testas framgår det att alla genererar olika resultat under samma antaganden. De flesta ligger inom samma spann och skillnaderna uppkommer då de olika metoderna beaktar olika aspekter. En metod genererar dock ett resultat som är högre än alla andra, som i denna rapport benämns som Chalmersmetoden. Då denna metod lärs ut på Göteborgs tekniska universitet (Chalmers) så har de utstickande resultatet skapat en viss förvirring bland konstruktörer i Sverige. Då metoderna jämförs med numeriska analyser framgår det att Eurokod 2 förutspår en rimlig sprickvidd för låga töjningsgrader, medan den verkar vara överkonservativ för höga töjningsgrader. Chalmersmetoden verkar underestimera antalet sprickor som uppkommer i konstruktionen, vilket resulterar i de utstickande resultaten. Fortsättningsvis fastslås det att i relation till en mer detaljerad handberäkning så är den förenklade metoden i Eurokod 2 inte alltid på säkra sidan. Metoden är endast giltig inom ett visst spann, vilket kan överskridas beroende på den egentliga töjningens storlek och valet av dimensioneringsparametrar. Krypningens effekt på fastinspända betongkonstruktioner då de utsätts för långtidslaster så som krympning har också diskuterats och analyserats numeriskt. Olika handberäkningsmetoder antyder att krypningen har en positiv effekt på så sätt att sprickvidden minskar. Även de numeriska resultaten indikeratar att så är fallet, dock anses osäkerheten i dessa analyser vara stor i förhållande till analyser av korttidslaster.

This is probably the most appropriate time for the development of robust and reliable structural damage detection systems as aging civil engineering structures, such as bridges, are being used past their life expectancy and beyond their original design loads. Often, when a significant damage to the structure is discovered, the deterioration has already progressed far and required repair is substantial. This is both expensive and has negative impact on the environment and traffic during replacement. For the exposed reasons the demand for efficient Structural Health Monitoring techniques is currently extremely high. This licentiate thesis presents a two-stage model-free damage detection approach based on Machine Learning. The method is applied to data gathered in a numerical experiment using a three-dimensional finite element model of a railway bridge. The initial step in this study consists in collecting the structural dynamic response that is simulated during the passage of a train, considering the bridge in both healthy and damaged conditions. The first stage of the proposed algorithm consists in the design and unsupervised training of Artificial Neural Networks that, provided with input composed of measured accelerations in previous instants, are capable of predicting future output acceleration. In the second stage the prediction errors are used to fit a Gaussian Process that enables to perform a statistical analysis of the distribution of errors. Subsequently, the concept of Damage Index is introduced and the probabilities associated with false diagnosis are studied. Following the former steps Receiver Operating Characteristic curves are generated and the threshold of the detection system can be adjusted according to the trade-off between errors. Lastly, using the Bayes’ Theorem, a simplified method for the calculation of the expected cost of the strategy is proposed and exemplified. / <p>QC 20170420</p>

This research encompasses the automated design and structural optimization of reinforced concrete slab frame bridges, considering investment costs and environmental impacts. The most important feature of this work is that it focusses on realistic and complete models of slab frame bridges rather than on optimization of only individual members or sections of a bridge. The thesis consists of an extended summary of publications and three appended papers. In the first paper, using simple assumptions, the possibility of applying cost-optimization to the structural design of slab frame bridges was investigated. The results of the optimization of an existing constructed bridge showed the potential to reduce the investment cost of slab frame bridges. The procedure was further developed in the second paper. In this paper, automated design was integrated to a more refined cost-optimization methodology based on more detailed assumptions and including extra constructability factors. This procedure was then applied to a bridge under design, before its construction. From the point of view of sustainability, bridge design should not only consider criteria such as cost but also environmental performance. The third paper thus integrated life cycle assessment (LCA) with the design optimization procedure to perform environmental impact optimization of the same case study bridge as in the second paper. The results of investment cost and environmental impact optimization were then compared. The obtained results presented in the appended papers highlight the successful application of optimization techniques to the structural design of reinforced concrete slab frame bridges. Moreover, the results indicate that a multi-objective optimization that simultaneously considers both environmental impacts and investment cost is necessary in order to generate more sustainable designs. The presented methodology has been applied to the design process for a time-effective, sustainable, and optimal design of concrete slab frame bridges. / <p>QC 20170316</p>

Higher speeds and higher capacity will cause the Swedish rail network to be exposed to disturbing dynamic effects. Higher speeds cause higher vertical acceleration levels of the bridge deck. In this thesis, a numerical analysis of a three span end-frame bridge subjected to train induced vibrations is performed. The aim is to identify which structural components and boundary conditions that affect the dynamic behavior of the bridge. Furthermore, the influence of soil structure interaction (SSI) will be investigated as it may have contribution to the stiffness and damping of the structural system.  In order to capture the dynamic response of the bridge, an analysis in the frequency domain was preformed where frequency response functions (FRF) and acceleration envelopes were obtained. For this purpose, a detailed FE-model in 3D was created. Three different cases were studied, model subjected to ballast, model subjected to soil and model subjected to both ballast and soil in coherence. A high speed load model (HSLM) was used to create simulation of train passages at different speeds and applied to all cases so that the bridge deck accelerations could be studied. A simplified 2D-model with impedance functions representing the soil-structure interaction was created to validate the results from the detailed 3D-model and for practical design purposes.  The result of this numerical analysis showed that the vertical accelerations were within acceptable levels of the maximum allowed limits given in governing publications. Considering the surrounding soil, the results revealed an increase of the dynamic response in the midspan at resonant frequency. However, it was identified that this behavior is not explained by the influence of soil structure interaction but rather the change in boundary conditions of the end-shields. The same dynamic behavior was identified for the simplified 2D-model, with a slight underestimation of the vertical accelerations at resonance.