关键词：钢材；成本；营销；桥梁；建筑
摘 要：This project addressed the goal of National Strategy for Surface Transportation Research to improve highway structures by enhanced materials, in particular by design and implementation of new, drastically improved steels with respect to strength, low-temperature fracture toughness, weldability, and weatherability. The goal of the project was to develop, standardize and commercialize a family of low-cost, high-performance steels for infrastructure applications. As a result we developed steels with yield strength of 50 to 80 ksi, with Charpy absorbed fracture energy significantly exceeding requirements of bridge construction codes at temperatures down to -100DGF, steels that are easy to weld without pre-heat or post-heat, steels that exhibit best weathering performance among other commercially available steels. In addition these steels are easy to produce; production does not involve any heat treatment or thermo-mechanically controlled processing which is available only to several US Steel companies. The steels developed in this project were commercially produced in the form of plate and wide-flange I-beams. The steels were used for seismic retrofitting of one bridge (in 2000) and for construction of two new bridges (in 2006 and 2010).