Commentary: Restoring the West Mill GFRP Deck Road Bridge to full capacity

By keeping communities connected and by enabling movement of goods, our road network underpins society's well-being and prosperity. Bridges ensure connectivity within the network. Hence recent bridge collapses, e.g. the Morandi bridge in Italy [BBC, 2018] and the Mirepoire bridge in France [BBC, 2019], put into sharp focus the crucial need for more durable, more robust bridge technologies.

To those ends an important development is glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) deck-on-beam bridges. GFRP is a light, stiff, strong, corrosion-resistant material that comprises glass fibres (which give the stiffness and strength) embedded in a resin (that protects...