Optimised and 3D printed steel garden bridge: from design to experimental verification
Author(s)
Weber, Ben
Meng, Xin
Gardner, Leroy
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Wire-arc directed energy deposition (DED-Arc), or wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM), enables large-scale, intricate metallic components to be created in an automated manner, with great promise in construction. This paper presents the design, manufacture and experimental verification of a 4 m-span, East Asian garden bridge-inspired and structurally optimised DED-Arc steel pedestrian bridge. The bridge consists of optimised DED-Arc steel tubular components as the main load-carrying structure, and wooden boards on top as the decking. The structural performance of the bridge was examined through non-destructive testing of the fully assembled bridge up to the design load and destructive testing to failure of a duplicate of the main arch, which confirmed the load-carrying capacity of the bridge and showed generally good correlation with the prior numerical simulations. This study successfully demonstrates the feasibility of integrating DED-Arc with structural optimisation at scale, and its significant role in construction automation and decarbonisation.
Date Issued
2026-01-01
Date Acceptance
2025-10-27
Citation
Automation in Construction, 2026, 181 (Part B)
ISSN
0926-5805
Publisher
Elsevier
Journal / Book Title
Automation in Construction
Volume
181
Issue
Part B
Copyright Statement
© 2025 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
License URL
Subjects
Additive manufacturing
Construction & Building Technology
Engineering
Engineering, Civil
Science & Technology
Steel structures
Technology
Testing
Topology optimisation
Wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM)
Wire-arc directed energy deposition (DED-arc)
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
106638
Date Publish Online
2025-11-12