X-BRIDGE Program

(Photo by University of Maine)

The ARPA-I eXceptional Bridges through Innovative Design and Groundbreaking Engineering (X-BRIDGE) program is focused on creating transformative materials, designs, and construction techniques that can deliver bridges at half the cost, in half the time, and with twice the lifespan.

As new advanced materials and techniques leveraging rapidly developing technologies like AI and automation are being developed and adapted, significant opportunities remain to produce novel materials for construction that can increase performance while meeting the sector’s stringent cost and safety requirements. Similarly, advanced construction techniques and design tools are opening up completely new ways of building transportation infrastructure. Taken as a whole, these converging technological trends have the potential to drastically reduce the cost of designing, rebuilding, and maintaining America’s backlog of over 40,000 structurally deficient bridges. 

Through a cooperative agreement between ARPA-I and the University of Maine, this first project under the X-BRIDGE program will develop and integrate new advanced composite materials into bridge construction and accelerate bridge design and optimization through AI-assisted system engineering tools. The effort will also explore and devise new methods to increase the resiliency of these advanced bridges against acute threats like large vehicle impact and extreme weather events. The team aims to prototype a full-scale demonstration bridge using these new capabilities in partnership with an infrastructure owner and operator and to commercialize the underlying new technologies.