My Thuan Bridge was built over the Mekong River in southern Vietnam and has made a major contribution to the economic development of the Mekong delta. It was the first cable-stayed bridge to be built in Vietnam and has a navigation span of 350 m and a total length of 1536 m. The bridge was jointly funded by Australia and Vietnam; a joint steering committee was formed to manage the project, ensuring close cooperation at all levels of work. An extensive feasibility study investigated the difficult engineering problems associated with the site and evaluated the social and environmental impacts of the project. Alternative bridge designs were prepared and costed before deciding on the final design of the bridge. A major Vietnamese training programme was integrated into the project to transfer the new technology to Vietnam and the bridge was constructed in 33 months at a cost of A$83 million (1A$ = €0.785, 2012).

In 2003 a group of structural engineers founded a new group within the charitable organisation ‘Engineers Without Borders Germany’. Inspired by the work of other non-government organisations, they set off with the goal of applying their engineering knowledge to post-disaster relief work and infrastructure development in countries where it was most needed. Over the past 10 years the group has grown into a team of engineers, architects and students spread across Germany who plan, design and execute bridge projects in developing countries. The initial projects were footbridges built in Rwanda, but the scope has expanded ever since. The group aims at providing sustainable design and construction, which means that locally available materials and construction techniques are to be preferred. Further, the training of local engineers is considered important for providing a lasting infrastructure that can be maintained by the communities themselves. To this end, training workshops have been held and a strong relationship with a local university has been established. This paper describes the challenging work of providing safe yet efficient bridge designs and outlines the execution of some projects. It also describes the history of the group and outlines some of the work undertaken in research and development.

Supply to internally displaced persons in north-east Democratic Republic of Congo is difficult because of poor roads and the lack of bridges and culverts. Funds became available for construction of 22 short bridges and 28 culverts and repair of three Bailey bridges. The situation presented challenges of insecurity, poor access and communications, limited capacity of the highway authorities, strictly limited funds, poor site information and uncertain quality of materials, supervision and workmanship. This paper records how the project team formulated a project to improve access, identified and overcame the challenges and brought the project to a successful conclusion. It contains a brief review of guidance relating to low-cost bridges, information on the designs chosen and resources used, allowances made for the conditions and lessons learnt to assist engineers working in similar circumstances. The first year's project was successfully completed on time and in budget to the benefit of the local population.

This paper details the monitoring and repair of an impact damaged prestressed concrete bridge. The repair was required following an impact from a low-loader carrying an excavator while passing underneath the bridge. The repair was carried out by preloading the bridge in the vicinity of the damage to relieve some prestressing. This preload was removed following the hardening and considerable strength gain of the repair material. The true behaviour of damaged prestressed concrete bridges during repair is difficult to estimate theoretically due to a lack of benchmarking and inadequacy of assumed damage models. A network of strain gauges at locations of interest was thus installed during the entire period of repair. Effects of various activities were qualitatively and quantitatively observed. The interaction and rapid, model-free calibration of damaged and undamaged beams, including identification of damaged gauges, were also probed. This full-scale experiment is expected to be of interest and benefit to the practising engineer and the researcher alike.