Modular portable mountain footbridge for high altitude mountainous regions

High altitude snow-bound mountainous regions often inaccessible to vehicles frequently require footbridges. These bridges must be made of modular lightweight components to allow manual transportation and quick assembly at sites. Further, they must sustain low temperature, windy conditions and snow accumulation prevalent at high altitude. In this paper, we present a design of mountain footbridge of 35 m span and 0.8 m pathway catering to such requirements. The primary through-truss structure of the bridge consists of only two components: (a) an equilateral triangle and (b) a strut. We configured them such that the load capacity or span can be easily increased in two ways: (a) with multiple panels adjacent to each other and, (b) one above the other. We conducted a finite element model based parametric study to arrive at an optimal configuration. A cantilever based lightweight launching system is also designed to enable quick bridge erection with access only from the near bank. The launching system is configured such that the main bridge modules act as counterweight, thereby eliminating the need for additional weights. The bridge has been completed and successfully load tested. Made with aluminium alloy 6061-T6 extrusions, all modules of the bridge weigh below 18 kg. The bridge is erected in less than 60 minutes using a lightweight launching system comprising of panels weighing not more than 12 kg. The bridge can be constructed in areas with a restricted back space of less than 12 m. This unique modular portable footbridge is an attractive solution for quick manual construction of footbridges in inaccessible areas.

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