Engineering Structures 221 (2020) 110981

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Engineering Structures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/engstruct

Optimizing the steel girders in a high strength steel composite bridge T

⁎
Oskar Skoglund , John Leander, Raid Karoumi
Division of Structural Engineering and Bridges, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm 100 44, Sweden

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The use of high strength steel has the potential to reduce the amount of steel used in bridges and thereby,
High strength steel facilitate a more sustainable construction. In this study, an optimization of a composite steel and concrete bridge
Composite steel and concrete bridge is presented. The study aimed at identifying the potential benefits of using high strength steel, compared to
Optimization conventional steel, in terms of weight, material cost and environmental impact. The optimization routine fol-
Hybrid girder
lowed what is outlined in the Eurocode and satisfied both ultimate and serviceability limit state conditions, with
Fatigue
exception of fatigue. To study the influence of fatigue a separate verification was performed on the solutions
found from the optimization. The study showed that substantial savings in weight, environmental impact and
material cost could be made by implementing high strength steel. However, when the fatigue verification ac-
cording to Eurocode was considered, the potential benefits of using steels of higher grade vanished completely.

1. Introduction
The use of high strength steel (HSS) for bridge structures can lead to
substantial material savings, and therefore has the potential to be more
economical and environmentally friendly, compared to mild steel. The
material savings that can be realized by an increase in steel grade are
highly dependent on to what degree the steel is being utilized. A
strategy in order to utilize the most of the steels capacity is to compose
the steel girders with plates of different steel grade, called hybrid gir-
ders, which has been proven to be an economically sound approach for
many cases. This fact is partly reflected by how the Swedish highway
and railway bridges have been designed in the last two decades, see
Fig. 1, which shows the percentage and number of steel girder bridges
built using hybrid girders.
What often sets the upper limit for the steel grade that can be used,
and is the main obstacle when using HSS, is the fatigue phenomenon.
The reason behind this is that the fatigue life of welded structures is
typically characterized by crack growth, which is insensitive to the
yield strength of the material [2]. The governing regulations, e.g.
Eurocode, specify fatigue strength based on geometry only, without
considering different material properties. Furthermore, since less ma-
terial and a higher stress state can be allowed for by implementing HSS
in the static case, a higher fluctuating stress range can be expected,
which amplifies the problems of using HSS.
A substantial part of the cost for composite steel and concrete
bridges is associated with the manufacturing of steel material; usually
this covers 24–50% of the total cost of the steelwork [3]. In countries
where labour is cheap the cost of material covers a larger share and vice
versa for countries with more expensive labour.
Several studies have been made to investigate the potential eco-
nomical benefits and material savings of using HSS and hybrid girders.
In [4] a cost and weight optimization of I-girders with respect to
cross-sectional capacity for bending and shear, maximum deflection
and to prevent flange buckling into the web was performed, following
the Eurocode. The study covered homogeneous and hybrid girder so-
lutions, with various span lengths and load magnitudes. It was con-
cluded that the higher grades became economical after a certain
threshold value of span length and load magnitude, and the minimum
cost was obtained by using a hybrid solution, for which the savings
were in the region of 4–10%. Meanwhile, the largest savings in weight,
of 34%, was achieved by homogeneous HSS solution.
In [5] a cost evaluation of an arch bridge was performed, following
the Korean design standard. The arch bridge was designed using ex-
clusively conventional steel (365 MPa yield strength) and also a com-
bination of conventional steel and HSS (690 MPa yield strength). A
genetic algorithm was used to optimize the design of the major steel
members (arch rib, main girders and cross beams) with respect to cost,
by assigning the HSS steel to the most stressed members. From the
optimization it could be concluded that the cost and weight of the
major steel members could be reduced by 20.2% and 22.9% respec-
tively, by partly using HSS.
A series of continuous two span highway bridges were studied in
[6,7]; both homogeneous and hybrid solutions were included with steel
material of 345 MPa and 483 MPa yield strength. The design followed

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: oskarsko@kth.se (O. Skoglund).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2020.110981
Received 25 February 2020; Received in revised form 12 June 2020; Accepted 16 June 2020
0141-0296/ © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY/4.0/).
O. Skoglund, et al. Engineering Structures 221 (2020) 110981

factor when using HSS, was that the insufficient fatigue strength cannot
be circumvented within the boundaries of the governing codes. Solving
the fatigue issue will require measures which are beyond the scope of
this paper. Furthermore, plenty of research is being devoted to increase
and improve the fatigue strength of welded HSS structures, so that the
fatigue strength will increase with the yield strength of the material
[10–12]. However, if the research of improving the conditions of HSS in
terms of fatigue should be meaningful, first the benefits of using HSS
must be proven.
The outline of this paper is as follows. In Section 2 the bridge that
was optimized is presented. The design routine, used for optimizing the
structure, is given in Section 3 and in Section 4 the fatigue verification
format is described. In Section 5 the optimization procedure that was
used is presented together with the objective functions. The results,
discussion and conclusions are given in Section 6–8, respectively.

2. Bridge case

The steel structure, which was optimized, included all individual

Fig. 1. Percentage and number of steel girder bridges built in the given inter-
plates of the steel I-girders carrying the concrete deck. The individual
vals that use hybrid girders, taken from [1]. This figure exclude homogeneous
solutions consisting of the lowest grade (S275 for railway bridges and S355 for plates composing the steel girders could assume eight different steel
road bridges). grades, as long as the criterion given in Section 3.4.2 was fulfilled,
giving a total of 454 material combinations. Furthermore, the dimen-
sions of the individual plates could assume any value between given
what is outlined in the AASHTO design specifications, and it was con-
intervals, allowing for single symmetric cross-sections, the intervals are
cluded that by using hybrid girders 13% and 11% of the steelwork cost
given in Section 5.
could be saved in each study respectively. Meanwhile, 17% and 12.8%
Meanwhile, the length of the bridge, the number of girders sup-
of the material could be saved in each study respectively when applying
porting the slab, and the properties, dimensions and reinforcement
homogeneous girders with 483 MPa compared to 345 MPa steel.
content of the concrete deck was kept constant. In order to use rea-
For bridge structures the manufacturing of materials usually ac-
sonable values, a reference bridge was used, which was built in Sweden
count for the majority of the total environmental impact. With values
in 2015. The reference bridge has a length of 32.1 m, supported by two
re-evaluated from [8], the structural steel of the box girder and the I-
girders (cc 7.5 m), concrete deck thickness of 0.33 m and width of
girders of two steel and concrete composite bridges, presented in [8],
12.5 m, concrete quality C40/50, reinforcement ϕ 16cc280 of B500B
accounted for 35% and 30% of the total CO2 emission; this data used a
quality and a concrete cover of 40 mm; the cross-section at an inter-
steel recycling rate of 37%. However, the environmental impact for
mediate bracing of the reference bridge is depicted in Fig. 2. Further-
civil engineering structures using HSS has not been investigated to any
more, the steel girders of the reference bridge were built in three seg-
great extent.
ments. In the optimization, however, the same plate dimensions and
In this paper, the steel structure of a single span composite steel and
steel grades were kept through the entire length of the girders. The
concrete bridge was optimized against the amount of material, the cost
plate sizes and steel grades for the three segments, segment A and C on
and the CO2 emission. The structure was optimized against a static load
opposite ends of the bridge with a length of 7.05 m each and segment B
case and allowed for eight different steel grades to be used and a range
in the mid-span of the bridge, are given in Table 1. The bridge has four
of different plate dimensions of the steel girders. Furthermore, an ad-
intermediate bracings and the most critical ones from a fatigue point of
ditional parametric study covering different span lengths and concrete
view are located 13.25 m from the supports.
deck properties was performed. The optimization procedure covered
multiple ultimate limit state and serviceability limit state conditions,
with exception of fatigue. To study the influence of fatigue, a separate 3. Design routine
fatigue verification was performed for a few of the optimized girder
solutions. The design routine was divided into two stages, one during con-
The reason for choosing single span bridges where the steel struc- struction and one for the final condition when the bridge was in service.
ture consists of longitudinal I-girders was that they cover a large part of For the construction stage the concrete had been poured but had not
the total bridge stock for composite steel and concrete bridges. Out of hardened, during which the bare steel carried all the load. For the final
the Swedish bridge stock, and for bridges built between 1990 and 2015, condition full composite action between the steel and the concrete was
roughly 50% of all steel and composite concrete bridges were made
6250
with a single span and among the single span bridges approximately
98.5% are carried by steel I-girders; this was based on data collected 330 CL
from 412 steel and concrete bridges publicly available at [9]. The re-
maining 1.5% were built with a box girder section.
The possible weight and cost benefits of using HSS have already
been covered to some extent. However, what separates this study from
the previous ones is that composite steel and concrete bridges following
the Eurocode are studied and the environmental impact of using HSS is
investigated.
The aim of this study was to investigate the potential savings that a
higher steel grade might allow for, without considering fatigue. The Fig. 2. Cross-section of the reference bridge and intermediate bracing, re-
reason for not incorporating fatigue in the optimization procedure, produced from structural drawings obtained from [9]. Dimensions given in
which was previously mentioned to be the most detrimental design [mm].

2
O. Skoglund, et al.
Table 1
Plate size and steel grade of the reference bridge.
Segments A &C Segment B
Size [mm] Steel grade Size [mm] Steel grade
UF 25 × 550 S420N 27 × 650 S460N
WB 18 × 1635 S355J2 15 × 1628 S355J2
LF 40 × 800 S460N 45 × 800 S460N
considered.
3.1. Limitations and assumptions
The design routine covered both ultimate limit state (ULS) and
serviceability limit state (SLS). In ULS the bending and shear resistance
of the cross-section was verified. During the construction phase the
effect of lateral torsional buckling was studied and during the final
stage it was assumed that sufficient lateral stability was provided by the
concrete slab and that no instability of the concrete slab could occur. In
SLS the vertical deformation, the uplift of the free ends of the bridge
beam and the stresses were verified.
3.2. Loads
During the construction phase the load considered in the analysis
was the self-weight of the steel and concrete, out of which the steel
girders carried the entire load. The density of the reinforced concrete
deck was set to 2500 kg/m3 and the steel was set to 7850 kg/m3 which
served as a uniformly distributed load along the entire length of the
simply supported bridge.
For verification of the bridge in the final stage the self-weight of the
steel and concrete as well as a static traffic load was used. The mag-
nitude of the traffic load was taken as load model 1 according to EN
1991-2 [13] and adjusted in accordance with the Swedish Annex [14];
load model 1 consists of four discrete point loads acting on each lane,
up to a maximum of three lanes, and a uniformly distributed load acting
on the entire surface.
The width of the carriageway and the notional lane was 12.5 m and
3 m respectively; the carriageway had four lanes. The magnitude and
transversal position of the three sets of point loads and the uniformly
distributed load were taken as to maximize the load on one of the
girders. This was done by placing the three sets of point loads in the
three lanes closest to one of the girders and placing the uniformly
distributed load only in the unfavourable regions. The equivalent
characteristic load from the four lanes of traffic acting on one of the
girders is illustrated in Fig. 3. Afterwards, two positions of the point
loads, in the longitudinal direction of the bridge were used. One posi-
tion at xle = 0 , as to produce the maximum shear force, and one posi-
tion at xle = L/2 − 0.6 , as to produce the maximum bending moment
and deflection, where L is the length of the bridge in meters. The design
load of the actions were determined based on EN 1990 [15]; Eq. 6.10
was used for ULS verification and 6.14a and 6.15a for SLS verification
of the limiting stresses and for deflection, respectively.
487 kN 487 kN
xle 1.2 m
28.3 kN/m
Fig. 3. Equivalent characteristic values of the loads from the four lanes acting
on one of the girders. The load values include the effect of vehicles in several
lanes.
3
Engineering Structures 221 (2020) 110981
Table 2
Steel grade and minimum elongation after fracture.
Grade Elongation [%]
S690QL 14
S620QL 15
S550QL 16
S500QL 17
S460ML 17
S420ML 19
S355ML 22
S275ML 24
3.3. Material model
3.3.1. Structural steel
For the structural steel, used for the girders, a bi-linear stress–strain
relation was adopted, with limiting strains based on minimum elon-
gation after fracture, see Table 2, taken from Table 5 in EN 10025-4
[16] and Table 5 in EN 10025-6 [17]. The stress–strain relation did not
include any strain hardening.
These limiting strains were adopted for all cross-sectional classes in
tension and as a rough approximation to limit the maximum strains
allowed for cross-sectional class 1–2 in compression. For cross-sectional
class 3–4 the limiting strains corresponded to the yield point of the
material.
The yield strength, fy was adjusted (decreased) to the plate thick-
ness according to Table 3.1 in EN 1993-1-1 [18] for steel grade up to
S460 and for S500 to S690 according to Table 1 in EN 1993-1-12 [19].
The partial factor used to assess the design value of the yield strength
f yd was set to 1.0 according to EN 1993-1-1 [18].
3.3.2. Reinforced concrete
For the compressed part of the concrete, a bi-linear stress–strain
relation was used, which was taken from EN 1992-1-1 clause 3.1.7(2)
[20]. Concrete in tension was assumed to be cracked and therefore
neglected. The ultimate strain for concrete in compression was taken
from Table 3.1 of EN 1992-1-1 [20] and set to 0.35%. The design
compressive strength of concrete was calculated to 26.67 MPa and the
E-modulus was set to 35 GPa.
The stress–strain relation for reinforcement steel was taken to be bi-
linear with a yield strength calculated to 434.78 MPa and an E-modulus
of 200 GPa.
3.4. Resistance to bending
The calculation of the cross-sectional resistance to bending pro-
ceeded in two stages, one for the construction phase before composite
behaviour and one for the service phase after full composite behaviour,
see Section 3.4.3 and 3.4.4, respectively. To account for the sequence of
construction, the stress state in the steel girders, caused by self-weight,
were considered in the service phase as an initial stress distribution. To
allow for a non-linear stress distribution in the steel girders during the
first stage, the stress state could not be superimposed into the sub-
sequent stage. Therefore, an initial strain state was used when calcu-
lating the bending resistance of the composite section, this strain state
corresponded to the external bending moment applied, caused by the
self-weight. This procedure was based on the assumption that plane
sections remain plane during bending for both stages. The addition of
strains is illustrated in Fig. 4.
Furthermore, the effective width of the concrete deck, to account for
shear lag, was calculated according to clause 5.4.1.2 in [21].
3.4.1. Lateral torsional buckling
The girders were ensured to have sufficient moment capacity with
respect to lateral torsional buckling by limiting the utilization ratio of
O. Skoglund, et al.
Fig. 4. Addition of strains: (a) Strains during construction phase (b) additional
strains added from the service phase (c) the final strain distribution that causes
collapse of the cross-section.
the steel during the construction stage. This limitation was enforced by
removing the girder solutions that did not fulfil the moment capacity
with respect to lateral torsional buckling. The temporary lateral bra-
cings, used during the construction, were assumed to provide enough
stiffness so that the buckling length could be confined between the
bracers. The buckling length of the most critical location was 3 m and
was analysed as end-forked boundary conditions with equal end mo-
ments and free to warp. The effect of the timber formwork was not
considered.
Any re-distribution of stresses connected to lateral torsional buck-
ling was not accounted for in the service stage. This is because that the
stresses that arise from lateral torsional buckling are self-equilibrium
stresses and should therefore not affect the moment capacity in the
service phase as long as local buckling of the top flange is inhibited.
3.4.2. Hybrid girders
The design rules for hybrid girders are given in EN 1993-1-5 [22]
and sets an upper limit for the ratio of material strength between flange
and web up to 2.0. Furthermore, the web plate is allowed to partially
yield close to the flange plate, irrespective of the cross-sectional class
(CSC), according to clause 4.3(6) in EN 1993-1-5 [22]. For web plates of
CSC 3–4, the limit for the partial plastification in the compressed zone
is the yield limit of the compressed flange. Herein, the strain corre-
sponding to the yield limit at the junction between the web and the
flange was used. An example of a possible stress distribution for the
hybrid cross-section is given in Fig. 5.
The limits of the width-to-thickness ratios for compressed parts used
for cross-sectional classification is given in Table 5.2 of EN 1993-1-1
[18]. These limits depend on the stress distribution and the size of the
compressive zone. For determining the limit between CSC 3 and 4 a
linear stress distribution, with a factor ψ covering the ratio between the
edge stresses of the plate is to be used. However, Eurocode does not
specify how to account for partial plastification. Herein, to account for
the fact that the web becomes more prone to local buckling as the web
starts to partially yield, the factor ψ was calculated as:
Fig. 5. Stress distribution of a hybrid cross-section where the flange belongs to
CSC 1 or 2 and web belongs to CSC 4. For this specific example, the web plate
has a lower yield strength compared to the upper flange and a higher yield
strength compared to the lower flange.
4
Engineering Structures 221 (2020) 110981
fwt
ψ=
fmc (1)
where fwt is the edge stress of the web plate in tension and fmc is the
maximum compressive stress in the junction between the web and the
flange.
The implication of clause 4.3(6) in EN 1993-1-5 [22], for hybrid
girders where the yield strength in the web plate can be higher than the
yield strength in the flange plates and vice versa, is that the effective
area of the web should be determined based on the maximum stress in
the junction of the web and the flange. Therefore the expression for the
slenderness parameter, λ̄ p of the web plate is as follows:
fmc b¯/ t
λ¯ p =
235 28.4 k σ (2)
where k σ is a buckling factor accounting for the stress distribution, b̄ is
the height of the web (excluding the leg length of the welds) and t is the
thickness of the web. For determining k σ a linearly varying stress dis-
tribution was used, which was based on the stresses given in Eq. 1.
3.4.3. Construction stage
The response of the cross-section was found by an iterative proce-
dure of matching a strain gradient and a position of the neutral axis
with the external moment and at the same time achieving longitudinal
force equilibrium. The iteration was done by successively assuming a
position of the neutral axis in a stepwise procedure along the height of
the girder; at each position, the strain gradient was varied until the
response of the cross-section was equal to the external moment. Once
the entire height of the girder had been stepped through, the position of
the neutral axis that gave the best correspondence with the longitudinal
force equilibrium was used and a much finer iterative procedure was
performed in the neighbouring zone. The stresses were calculated based
on the bilinear stress–strain relationship of the relevant steel material,
and the method followed what is outlined for hybrid girders in Section
3.4.2. Failure conditions, in terms of limiting strains given in Section
3.3.1, were formulated for each edge of the flange plates and web plate,
respectively.
3.4.4. Service stage
For the service stage, the final capacity of the composite structure is
sought and, therefore, the strain gradient need not to be varied. The
design procedure during the service stage followed the method outlined
in clause (1–5) of Section 6.2.1.4 in EN 1994-2 [21] and the design
rules that were previously stated for hybrid girders. Once again the
resistance was determined through an iterative procedure based on the
stress–strain relationship of the materials and by assuming a position of
the neutral axis. The position of the neutral axis was moved until
equilibrium between compressive and tensile stresses was achieved.
The failure condition that set the strain gradient was based on the
limiting strains of steel and concrete. The limiting strains for steel were
as before, and the limiting strain for concrete was set to ∊cu3 = 0.35%. To
account for the construction stage, the previous strain stage was used as
an initial state of strain in the calculation. The additional moment ΔM
that could be applied before failure was calculated as:
n
ΔM = ∑ ΔFn |z n |
i=1 (3)
where n is the number of segments that the cross-section is divided into,
z n is the distance for segment n to the neutral axis and ΔFn is the change
in force for segment n and is calculated as:
ΔFn = |σn1 wn1 − σn2 wn2 |dh (4)
where σn1 and σn2 is the stress in segment n for the construction stage
and the service stage respectively, wn1 and wn2 is the width of the seg-
ment for the construction stage and the service stage respectively and
O. Skoglund, et al.
dh is the height of the segment. It should be noted that the change in
width between the two stages can only occur for a compressive flange in
cross-sectional class 4.
3.5. Resistance to vertical shear
The cross-sectional resistance to vertical shear VRd was based on the
structural steel section for both stages, which is supported by clause
6.2.2.2(1) and 6.2.2.3(2) in EN 1994-2 [21]. Therefore, the plastic re-
sistance to vertical shear was calculated according to EN 1993-1-1 [18]
and the shear buckling resistance according to EN 1993-1-5 [22], with
non-rigid end posts. The combination of bending and vertical shear was
not studied, and assumed not to have an impact.
3.6. Deformations
The limit for vertical deflection ΔRd and uplift uRd of the bridge end
is given in the Swedish Annex [23] and set to L/400 and 5 mm, re-
spectively; the bridge ends extended 0.7 m from the supports. The
vertical deflection ΔEd and the uplift uEd was calculated under linear
elastic conditions with standard analytical solutions and only con-
sidering the traffic load. For the self-weight of the structure the de-
formation was assumed to be counteracted by superelevation of the
bridge.
3.7. Limiting stresses
The nominal stresses in the steel were limited according to EN 1993-
2 clause 7.3(1) [24]:
fy
σEd,ser ⩽
γM,ser (5)
fy
τEd,ser ⩽
3 γM,ser (6)
where fy is the yield strength of the material, γM,ser is set to 1.0 and
σEd,ser and τEd,ser are the normal stresses and shear stresses respectively.
Clause 4.3(7) in EN 1993-1-5 [22] was interpreted as allowing for
stresses to exceed the yield limit due to partial plastification. Therefore,
in Eq. 5 the yield strength of the flange material was used. Furthermore,
the interaction between shear and normal stresses in the flange material
is usually low and thus this interaction was neglected. The calculation
procedure followed what is outlined in Section 3.4, with the exception
for lateral torsional buckling, which was not included.
Due to that the shear stresses are highest in the web, the yield
strength for the web material was used in Eq. 6. The shear stresses were
calculated as follows:
VEd,ser
τEd,ser =
Aw (7)
where VEd,ser is the shear force and Aw is the area of the web of the steel
girder.
The stresses in the concrete σEd,c,ser were limited to 0.6fck according
to clause 7.2(102) in EN 1992-2 [25].
4. Fatigue verification
A separate fatigue verification was performed for girder solutions
obtained from the optimization procedure. The damage equivalent
method given in EN 1993-2 with fatigue load model 3 (FLM 3) was used
for this purpose. The fatigue assessment format is defined as:
Δσc
γFf ΔσE2 ⩽
γMf (8)
where ΔσE2 is the equivalent stress range, Δσc is the detail category,
5
Engineering Structures 221 (2020) 110981
3
1
2
Fig. 6. Fatigue location 1, 2 and 3 subjected to longitudinal normal stresses and
with a crack formation perpendicular to the direction of stresses, reproduced
from [1].
both corresponding to 2 million cycles. The partial factors for fatigue
loading γFf and for fatigue resistance γMf , was set to 1.0 and 1.35, re-
spectively.
FLM 3 is specified in EN 1991-2 [13] and consists of a single vehicle
represented by four discrete point loads. Depending on the annual
average daily traffic (AADT) the traffic is placed into different cate-
gories. These traffic categories determine the number of heavy vehicle,
Nobs , per year. It was here assumed that an AADT of heavy traffic was
⩽ 600 , which gives traffic category 4 according to the Swedish Annex
[23], which in turn gives Nobs = 50, 000 . The fatigue resistance was
evaluated at three locations, see Fig. 6. Location 1 is at the junction
between the transverse stiffener at the most critical intermediate bra-
cing and the flange plates; location 2 is at the junction between the web
plate and the flanges; and location 3 is at the welds connecting segment
A and C with B. All three of these locations were verified against
longitudinal normal stresses and for a crack formation perpendicular to
the direction of stresses. According to EN 1993-1-9 [26], location 1, 2
and 3 has a detail category of Δσc = 80 MPa, Δσc = 125 MPa and
Δσc = 80 MPa, respectively. However, location 3 is adjusted for the size
effect according to [26]. Furthermore, the bridge was assumed to have
a service life of 100 years.
5. Optimization
For the optimization of the steel structure a genetic algorithm (GA)
was used. The GA is based on a metaheuristic algorithm that simulates
the evolution of a population over several generations in order to find
the most optimal solution to a problem, for more information regarding
GAs see [27]. The solution of the GA is highly dependent on the input
parameters and the right choice of parameters is an optimization pro-
blem itself. Herein, Matlab’s toolbox for GAs was used with a popula-
tion size of 50, a cross-over fraction of 80%, elite count of 5% and
adaptive feasible mutation function; see [28] for more details regarding
the toolbox. To ensure that a reliable solution was given the initial
population, of 50 individuals, were based on the 50 best girder solu-
tions out of 20,000 randomly generated girders. Furthermore, the op-
timization was terminated after which the average relative change in
the best objective function over 50 generations was less than or equal to
a specified function tolerance. The function tolerance was set to
1 × 10−6 . On average, an optimization took approximately 150 gen-
erations and about 145 min of CPU time to converge.
The design variables cover the thickness and the width/height of the
three individual steel plates; upper flange, lower flange and web-plate.
The six design variables are collected in the design vector:
x = [tuf buf tw hw tlf blf ] (9)
where t denotes the thickness, b the width, h the height and the sub-
script uf, w and lf denotes the upper flange, the web-plate and the lower
flange, respectively. The design variables are continuous and given by
the following intervals, given in mm: 10 ⩽ tuf ⩽ 60 , 10 ⩽ tlf ⩽ 60 ,
10 ⩽ tw ⩽ 40 , 200 ⩽ buf ⩽ 1000 , 200 ⩽ blf ⩽ 1000 and 1000 ⩽ h w ⩽ 2800 .
O. Skoglund, et al. Engineering Structures 221 (2020) 110981

In the optimization, inequality constraints were used. The general
mathematical expression can be formulated as:
ED − RD ⩽ 0
where ED is the design effect of action and RD is the design resistance.
The seven inequality constraints are collected in array c , which for all
individual cells should be less than or equal to 0.
c= [MEd − MRd (x ); VEd − VRd (x ); uEd (x ) − uRd…
ΔEd (x ) − ΔRd; σEd,ser (x ) − fy / γM,ser;…
τEd,ser (x ) − fy /( 3 γM,ser ); σEd,c,ser (x ) − 0.6fck ]
where cell c[1] covers the bending moment resistance and is explained
in Section 3.4, cell c[2] covers the shear resistance and is covered in
Section 3.5, cell c[3] and cell c[4] covers the deflection and uplift of the
bridge, respectively, and is covered in Section 3.6, cell c [5], c [6] and
c[7] covers the limiting stresses of the steel and the concrete and is
given in Section 3.7. All the design effects are calculated based on
analytical solutions under linear elastic conditions with loads and load
combinations presented in Section 3.2.
5.1. Objective functions
price might vary considerably between different manufacturers and at
another point in time than the one considered herein. A parametric
(10) study on the influence of variations in steel prices is presented in Sec-
tion 6.3.
5.1.3. CO2 emission of the steel girders
The environmental impact of the different steel grades are set in
relation to its CO2 equivalent (CO2eq) emission. The CO2eq of different
steel grades are given in Table 3 together with the ratio of the global
warming potential (GWP) over the yield strength of the material fy ,
(11) normalized with respect to S355. The values are taken from Table 6.6.1
in [29], with exception of the value for S275, which was extrapolated.
These values are based on alloying content and adjusted for the average
energy consumption of the different processing steps. Furthermore,
these values do not consider any recycling of scrap metal.
The objective function for the CO2eq emission (CO2eqe) is as fol-
lows:
CO2 eqe = ρ (Auf GWPuf + Aw GWPw + Alf GWP lf ) (14)
where GWPuf , GWPw and GWP lf is the value of global warming potential
for the steel grade of the upper flange, web plate and lower flange,
respectively.

The steel girders carrying the concrete bridge deck were optimized
5.2. Reliability of the results
against three objective functions, weight, CO2 emission and material
cost of the steel girders.
The GA is a stochastic algorithm, meaning, that with the exact same
input different outcome can be expected. As a means to quantify the
5.1.1. Weight of the steel girders expected scatter a validation of the analysis have been made, and the
The objective function for the weight of the two steel girders, ex- scatter v was estimated as:
pressed in kg/m, is as follows:
s
W = ρ (Auf + Aw + Alf ) v=
(12) μ (15)
where ρ is the density of steel, set to 7850 kg/m3,
Aw is the area of the where s is the standard deviation and μ is the mean value. A scatter of
web plates and Auf and Aul is the area of the upper and lower flange, 0.69% was obtained by running the analysis with the same set of input
respectively. 48 times. However, the relative difference between the lowest and
highest value was 3.84%. Therefore, to improve the reliability of the
5.1.2. Material cost of steelwork results, for each material combination presented in Table 5, the opti-
The objective function for the cost of the steel material for the two mization was performed 12 times with the exact same input, and the
girders, expressed in €/m, is as follows: lowest of the values obtained was presented in the results. The material
C = ρ (Auf Cuf + Aw Cw + Alf Clf ) (13) combinations used for the refined analysis were chosen based on some
of the best girder solutions with respect to the three objective functions,
where Cw , Cuf and Clf is the material price of the steel grade of the web together with common solutions found in the Swedish bridge stock and
plate and the upper and lower flange, respectively. The material price also some unconventional solutions.
together with the normalized value of material price over yield strength
with respect to S355 are given in Table 3 and based on Swedish prices 6. Results
for the first quarter of 2018; values given within parenthesis are in-
terpolated values. It should be noted that the steel prices were obtained Herein, the results of the optimization process, for the 454 material
from a single Swedish manufacturer of steel bridges and that the steel combinations, with respect to weight, CO2eqe and cost of the steel
material are given, together with a fatigue verification.
Table 3
The material price; the normalized ratio of material price over yield strength fy
6.1. Results from the optimization process
with respect to S355; the global warming potential (GWP), expressed as kg
CO2eq/kg steel; and the normalized ratio of GWP over yield strength fy with
The average steel grade and standard deviation, given within par-
respect to S355, is given for eight different steel grades. The material price enthesis, for the upper flange, web and lower flange, together with the
given within parenthesis are interpolated values and the GWP value within
interval of savings, are given for each objective function in Table 4. The
parenthesis is an extrapolated value.
results are based on the 45 best material combinations out of 454
Grade Material price Material price/f y GWP value GWP/ fy possible, and the savings are set in relation to the homogeneous S355
[ €/kg steel] [kg CO2eq/kg steel] solution. The homogeneous S355 solution was chosen as reference since
it is one of the most popular steel grade combinations in Sweden and in
S690 1.09 0.78 2.1880 0.55
S620 (0.99) 0.79 2.1579 0.60 the rest of Europe [1,30].
S550 (0.89) 0.80 2.1278 0.67 The results presented in Table 4 show, irrespective of objective
S500 (0.82) 0.81 2.1063 0.73 function, that the highest steel grade should be placed in the lower
S460 0.765 0.82 2.0891 0.79 flange, as to maximize the girders capacity and to minimize the ob-
S420 0.745 0.87 2.0719 0.86
jective functions. A high SD, for instance of the upper flange, indicates
S355 0.72 1.0 2.0440 1.0
S275 0.685 1.23 (2.0096) 1.27 that there are good solutions of which the steel grade can be both low
and high. Meanwhile, a low SD, for instance of the web plate when

6
O. Skoglund, et al. Engineering Structures 221 (2020) 110981

Table 4
The average steel grade and standard deviation SD, given within parenthesis,
together with the interval of savings for each objective function, with respect to
the homogeneous S355 solution. The interval and material strength are based
on the 45 best girder solutions.
Objective Avg. strength and (SD) [MPa] Savings [%]

function UF WB LF

Weight 559(102) 602(82) 657 (44) 34.6–27.7

CO2eqe 565 (95) 562(89) 668 (33) 29.3–23.4
Mat. cost 484 (105) 445 (33) 630(62) 17.2–12.0

Fig. 8. The ratio of the area of the upper flange over the area of the lower flange
as a function of the ratio of the steel grade of the upper flange over the lower
flange.

The majority of the optimal girder solutions were constrained by the

limiting normal stresses in the steel, given in Section 3.7, but also by the
resistance to bending, given in Section 3.4, and by the shear capacity
given in Section 3.5. For many of the optimal girder solutions, all three
of the decisive design factors had a utilization ratio close to 100%. For
the constraint with respect to deformations, given in Section 3.6, the
utilization ratio was below or equal to 79% and 84% for the deflection
and uplift, respectively. The utilization ratio for deformations increased
Fig. 7. Normalized values, against the homogeneous S355 solution, of weight, with increasing steel grade.
CO2eqe and cost for 18 material combinations. The optimal web height varied between 1.42 m and 2.79 m and
depended mostly on the steel grade of the lower flange, where a higher
optimizing for material cost, indicates that the number of optimal steel yield strength led to a lower optimal web height. No correlation be-
grades is small, and should in this case be either S420 or S460. tween the web height and the yield strength of the upper flange and the
The results from the refined analysis, with improved reliability web plate could be found.
(based on 12 runs of the GA), for the three objective functions are vi- The ratio of the area of the upper flange over the area of the lower
sualized in Fig. 7 for the material combinations presented in Table 5. flange as a function of the ratio of the steel grade of the upper flange
The results from the optimization are presented as normalized values over the lower flange is given in Fig. 8, based on the result from the
against the homogeneous S355 solution (index 2 in Table 5). weight optimization. The polynomial equation given in Fig. 8 is based
The largest savings in weight and CO2eqe was achieved by the on a nonlinear regression analysis of the data and can be used to find
homogeneous S690 solution (index 18), with savings of 33% and 28.3% the optimal flange ratio when a certain steel grade is given or vice
respectively. For minimizing the cost, the hybrid S460/S460/S690 so- versa. However, it should be noted that this might only be applicable
lution (index 16) was the best choice, with 16.4% lower cost. Based on for similar bridge configurations as given herein.
the normalized steel prices given in Table 3 and if the capacity of the
steel was fully utilized, the savings in cost should be 18.4% (compared 6.2. Fatigue evaluation
to 16.4%); indicating that the homogeneous S355 solution is better
utilized. However, the material price per yield strength is lower for The design stress range over the detail category γFf γMf ΔσE2,j/Δσc,j is
S460/S460/S690 and thus less expensive. presented in Fig. 9 for location j = 1, 2, 3 and for the girder solution
optimized against minimum weight. A ratio γFf γMf ΔσE2,j/Δσc,j ⩽ 1 in-
Table 5 dicates that the location had sufficient capacity with respect to fatigue.
Index and combination of steel grades. The following denotations are used, UF - For the 18 material combinations in Table 5 only index 1 fulfilled a
upper flange, LF - lower flange and WB - web. fatigue life of 100 years for all fatigue critical locations. Furthermore,
location 1 was decisive for all girder solutions. Location 1 was decisive
Combination Combination
because the design stress range at the position of location 1 and 2 were
Index UF WB LF Index UF WB LF close to identical and the stress range at location 3 was 27% lower. For
the homogeneous S355 girder (index 2), the detail category of location
1 690 550 275 10 460 355 460
1 required an increase of 10% to have a sufficient fatigue life, resulting
2 355 355 355 11 355 420 460
3 420 355 355 12 460 460 460 in a detail category of 88.1 MPa. A few of the values of location 3 are
4 460 420 355 13 690 460 460 deviating from what can be expected, this is due to differences in
5 355 690 355 14 355 460 690 thickness of the flanges, for instance index 2 has a considerably thicker
6 355 355 420 15 420 460 690 lower flange compared to the rest.
7 460 355 420 16 460 460 690
The ratio of γFf γMf ΔσE2,j/Δσc,j for the reference bridge, with the di-
8 420 420 420 17 275 550 690
9 420 355 460 18 690 690 690 mensions given in Table 1 and for traffic category 4, resulted in a uti-
lization ratio of 86%, 55% and 70% for location 1, 2 and 3, respectively.

7
O. Skoglund, et al. Engineering Structures 221 (2020) 110981

Fig. 9. Normalized values against the detail category of location 1, 2 and 3 Fig. 10. The effect on the normalized values of the material cost for different
respectively for 18 material combinations. steel prices of material combination index 16 (S460/S460/S690). The values
are normalized against the homogeneous S355 solution.

This means that the bridge was conservatively designed for the design
conditions that were given herein. homogeneous S355 solution. The normalized cost is rather insensitive
to the price of S690, this is because a rather low percentage of all the
material is allocated in the lower flange.
6.3. Additional parametric study

An additional parametric study was performed to investigate the 7. Discussion

influence of the span length, concrete thickness and quality. Four ad-
ditional bridge configurations, to the one presented in Section 2, were The intervals of the continuous design variables are chosen to re-
studied by running the optimization algorithm again for the new con- present the range of possible plate sizes and are based on Swedish
figurations. This study was made for three different material combi- bridges. However, the intervals are adjusted to give room for some
nations, index 2, index 16 and index 18. The normalized weight, CO2 outliers. The optimization is not restricted to the use of certain cross-
emission and material cost for index 16 and 18 with respect to index 2 is sectional classes, which might conflict with the praxis of some con-
presented in Table 6. The bridge configurations are described in the list sultant companies but not the design codes. The range of design vari-
below: ables regarding the width of the upper flange allows for a minimum of
two rows of headed shear studs to be used; which agrees with the
1. No changes made to the original bridge configuration. original design of the bridge where two rows were used. The minimum
2. Span length of 25 m instead of 32.1 m. flange thickness used in the design variable interval might conflict with
3. Span length of 40 m instead of 32.1 m. what is practically possible. There is no explicit limit for the minimum
4. Concrete deck thickness of 0.25 m instead of 0.33 m. thickness in the Eurocode. However, clause 6.6.5.6(1) in EN 1994-2
5. Concrete quality of C30/37 instead of C40/50. [21] specifies certain requirements that should be fulfilled. In the old
Swedish standard [31], the minimum thickness of the upper flange was
The results show that the objective functions are relatively in- set to 20 mm to allow for the welding of shear studs, which is violated
sensitive to the length of the bridge span, the concrete thickness and for some of the optimized solutions. The thickness of the upper flange
quality. Furthermore, the influence of steel price on the normalized cost for the optimized solutions in Table 5 ranged from 15 to 26 mm. Fur-
of material combination index 16 was made. The dimensions obtained thermore, the height of the girder is not limited by any clearance. It
from a minimum weight optimization was used. The relative steel price should be noted that restricting the cross-sectional classes and the
of S460 and S690 was varied while the price of S355 was kept constant, minimum upper flange thickness and limiting the height of the girder
see Fig. 10. The results show that the steel price of S460 would have to might influence the results.
increase by more than 21%, if the price of S690 is kept constant or The difference in savings for the top 5 girder solutions were in the
lower, to make material combination index 16 more expensive than the region of 1–2%; indicating that there are several equally good material
combinations available for each objective function.
Table 6 The homogeneous S690 solution gave the lowest weight and was
Normalized values of the three objective functions with respect to the homo- among the lowest in CO2eqe, with a cost not much higher than the
geneous S355 solution, for the five different bridge configurations. homogeneous S355 solution; making it an interesting and possible
girder solution to minimize the environmental impact of the structure,
Objective Bridge configuration case No.
given that the fatigue issue can be solved. Furthermore, as previously
Index function 1 2 3 4 5 mentioned, the material price usually cover 24–50% of the entire cost
of the structure, and there are other cost factors that benefit from a
16 weight 0.748 0.745 0.758 0.766 0.7554 lower weight and thinner steel plates; a few of those factors are trans-
CO2 0.770 0.771 0.778 0.785 0.781
Cost 0.836 0.840 0.838 0.841 0.842
portation, welding and erection of the steel structure. The reason for
weight 0.670 0.683 0.665 0.673 0.674 that the homogeneous S690 solution performed well in emission but not
18
in cost was that the cost per yield strength is considerably higher for
CO2 0.717 0.731 0.712 0.721 0.722
Cost 1.020 1.034 1.007 1.019 1.021 HSS:s than the emission per yield strength for similar steels, see Table 3.
A girder solution that performed well for all three objective

8
O. Skoglund, et al.
functions was the hybrid S460/S460/S690 (index 16, in Table 5). This
was possible because of a good utilization ratio of all the steel plates
and a lower material price per yield strength compared to the homo-
geneous S355 solution.
In general, hybrid girder solutions provided the most cost effective
solutions. However, the fact that the material price also depends on the
size of the order, and that there usually is a minimum order size of each
steel grade might pose a problem for the hybrid solutions. Something
which was not covered in this study.
The adjustment factors (defined in Section 4.3.2 of EN 1991-2 [13]),
which control the magnitude of the traffic load used in the cross-sec-
tional optimization, were in this case selected to be only slightly higher
than the minimum allowed in the Swedish Annex. If the adjustment
factors were taken to be unity instead, which is the maximum possible
and could occur for some traffic situations, the load effect from the
bending moment would be 11% higher. Furthermore, a few loads were
omitted in the optimization routine, for instance load from self-weight
of asphalt, from temperature effects and from shrinkage of concrete.
The increase in load effect from a higher traffic load and from the
omitted loads could possibly lead to an increase in cross-section di-
mensions enough for the optimized homogeneous S355 solution to have
sufficient fatigue life. However, it should be noted that the lowest traffic
category for fatigue was chosen and, therefore, that the influence of
fatigue could be even greater.
In the design algorithm a few controls related to the capacity were
neglected, for instance the spacing of the shear studs. The spacing of the
shear studs depends on the longitudinal shear flow between the steel
and the concrete, and as the shear flow increases the number of shear
studs should be increased. The optimal design of the homogeneous
S690 solution had 29% higher shear flow compared to the homo-
geneous S355 solution, due to the lower amount of steel material. This
was not covered in the design algorithm since it would not affect the
objective functions used in this article.
The additional parametric study showed that the span length, con-
crete thickness and quality did not have any noticeable influence on the
relative savings of any of the objective functions. This is most likely the
case since the decisive design criterion, for all bridge configurations,
was based on the yield strength of the material. Furthermore, having
three girders supporting the concrete slab, instead of the original two,
was also investigated. However, this did barely change the design loads.
For the point loads the design load decreased by 1.4% and the evenly
distributed load decreased by 4.9%. Due to the small change in design
loads the same savings in weight, CO2 emission, and material cost can
be expected for the two and three girder bridge configuration.
Many of the optimized solutions required a large improvement of
the detail category, especially for the transverse web stiffener, see
Fig. 9. The fatigue life can be improved by the designer by smart de-
tailing, aiming at placing the details in regions with lower stresses.
However, this will only lead to a marginally lower stress range for most
cases. Another technique of improving the fatigue life is by post-weld
treatment, which have shown promising results, and the hammer pe-
ening method has been reported to give improvements of 50–200%
[11]. The fatigue life can also be improved by new or modified struc-
tural details, with lower stress concentrations and/or lower tensile re-
sidual stresses.
Determining the total cost of a bridge structure is a complex pro-
blem containing several uncertainties and case specific factors. The
fabrication costs are to a large extent depending on the welding cost,
which in turn is depending on the weldability and the complexity of the
joint. Good weldability is often associated with a low carbon equivalent
value, and, especially, for steels produced by thermo-mechanical rolling
this can be achieved. However, for thicker plates and when thermo-
mechanical rolling cannot be applied, preheating might be necessary to
avoid hydrogen cracking. An example of preheating recommendations
from a steel manufacturer given in [12] and valid for S690QL, states
that the maximum plate thickness where room temperature is sufficient
9
Engineering Structures 221 (2020) 110981
is 40 mm. Furthermore, with a lower weight of the steel structure less
fuel and, possibly, another crane during construction can be used.
8. Conclusions
In this study, the steel structure of a steel and concrete composite
bridge was optimized with weight, cost and CO2eqe as separate ob-
jective functions. The novelty of this research comes from studying the
impact of CO2eqe and to base the design, used in the optimization of
steel and concrete composite bridges, on the Eurocode.
Without considering fatigue the solutions containing a higher steel
grade showed great potential in saving material, lowering the CO2eqe
and reducing the material cost of the steelwork. The largest savings in
weight and CO2eqe was achieved by the homogeneous S690 solution
and the largest savings in cost was achieved by the hybrid S460/S460/
S690 solution. By comparing these with the homogeneous S355 solu-
tion savings in weight, CO2eqe and cost of 33%, 28.3% and 16.4%
could be made, respectively. Furthermore, out of the 454 possible
material combinations, there were several different combinations that
would give similar result in terms of savings. However, when the in-
fluence of fatigue was taken into consideration the higher strength
steels lost all its beneficial effects. Even for many of the solutions
containing conventional steel (S275 - S460) fatigue was decisive.
Therefore, as a practical recommendation, the preliminary design of the
steel girders could be based on the fatigue verification, and by fulfilling
the fatigue verification the girders will most likely have sufficient ca-
pacity with respect to other ULS and SLS conditions.
Furthermore, the fatigue verification showed that by improving the
fatigue life of the web stiffener, often connected to the intermediate
bracings, the full static capacity can be realized for low and medium
grade steels (S275 - S460). This can for instance by done be weld-im-
provement techniques, new or modified structural details or placing the
fatigue prone details in regions subjected to a lower stress range.
Hybrid girder solutions gave the best utilization ratio and therefore
also the most cost effective solutions; where the highest steel grade
should be placed in the lower flange. Furthermore, the steel grade of the
web plate and upper flange seemed to be of equal importance.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Oskar Skoglund: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software,
Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing - original draft,
Writing - review & editing, Visualization. John Leander:
Conceptualization, Resources, Writing - review & editing, Supervision,
Project administration, Funding acquisition. Raid Karoumi:
Conceptualization, Resources, Writing - review & editing, Supervision,
Project administration, Funding acquisition.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
ence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
The funding for this project, provided by the Swedish Transport
Administration (Trafikverket), NCC, ELU and SSAB, is gratefully ac-
knowledged. BBT project number 2016-010.
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