USE OF SPECIALIZED SOFTWARE TOOLS FOR MODERN BRIDGE DESIGN

check, erection control. Abstract: This contribution addresses the importance of modern software tools for the design of bridge structures and the stability and serviceability checking process. Due to the complexity of modern bridge structures and the continuously rising demands for quality and safety, traditional proceeding with splitting the different tasks of the design and erection phase of bridges into small portions performed by different design teams, is not suitable anymore. Supporting the design and proof checking process by using highly sophisticated software systems is in fact the only way to come up with the scissors of rising computational requirements and small human resources. These integrated software tools perform design and checking tasks from the very beginning to the last detailed design check. By means of the TDV bridge analysis package RM2006 it is shown, how such software tools can considerably enhance and ease the design work for complex bridge structures by sup-porting design tasks, complex static and dynamic analysis tasks and detailed proof check-ing tasks in closed sequence. 1