As part of the B3 project, the world's first pedestrian bridge made of biobased composites is being planned and realized on the campus of Eindhoven University. All previous civil engineering projects using biobased composites have either been limited to non-structural components, such as facades, or realized in combination with conventional materials that require the use of fossil raw materials.
The application of bio-based materials in the built environment is an extremely promising approach to achieve a sustainable circular economy, which is one of the main goals of the Dutch national science agenda, but of course also plays a major role in the European research context.
The aim of this project is to use bio-based composites, in this case hemp and flax fibers in combination with Greenpoxy, an epoxy resin with a high biomass content. The core material for the load-bearing sandwich structure is PLA (polylactide), a material that can be completely biodegraded.
In addition to the material-technical investigations, architectural, structural and production-technical aspects naturally also play a major role in the project in order to not only plan this bridge with a span of 14m, but also to realize it in October 2016.