Invitation
Dear Colleagues,
We extend to the world-wide community of all bridge and structural engineers our invitation to the 6th İstanbul Bridge Conference 6-8 September 2024 in Istanbul. It's a 3-day event, with the first 2-days set aside for the technical sessions, followed by a technical tour on Sunday, September 8 of the Çanakkale 1915 Bridge. The conference will bring together the global bridge engineering community to discuss the latest developments in design, construction, maintenance and health monitoring of long span bridges. More than 5 international speakers are expected to attend the symposium from different parts of the world to exchange opinions and experience represented by long span bridges.
The 6th Istanbul Bridge Conference (iBridge-2024) will be in Istanbul on September 6-8, 2024. Bridges connecting two sides of a river, a strait and/or valleys are essential links of a transportation network. Their construction is often challenging for many reasons. Removal of major links results not only in delays or detours but causes lasting economic losses. Similar to the five previous conferences organized in Istanbul, IBridge 2024 is intended to provide a continued discussion platform to develop safe, sustainable and economically feasible solutions to be followed in bridge research, design and construction worldwide.
The current engineering challenges faced by the international bridge community will be discussed over special sessions on design approaches, construction technologies, digital developments and maintenance practices. In this scope, modern bridges such as suspension bridges, arch bridges, truss bridges, cable-stayed bridges, box bridges and slab on girders will represent the main focus of the conference. The construction methods such as balanced cantilever, incremental launching, moving scaffolding systems, cast-in-place and cable stayed will be discussed. Innovative methods developed to improve the current bridge management systems with integration of bridge inspection, monitoring and condition assessment are among the principal matters of the conference. Digital developments will be also introduced, such as use of artificial intelligence and image processing and progress made in structural condition assessment.
That such a conference is held in with a name of Istanbul, a metropolis that links two continents separated by a strait, now crossed by three major suspension bridges and two tunnels, is emblematic of the significance of modern transportation requirements for increasingly mobile societies. The fifth suspension bridge in the region is the 1915Çanakkale Bridge which is currently the longest suspension bridge in the world connecting Europe and Asia on the Çanakkale Strait and is on operation since 18th March 2022. The masterfully elegant suspension Osman Gazi Bridge at the mouth of Izmit Bay 50 km to the east is among the top ten longest span bridges in the world.
During the Istanbul Bridge Conference 2024, the expected attendance will be uniformly distributed among the design engineers, construction engineers, academics, material suppliers and students as observed in the past conferences with up to 400 participants from 25 different countries. The social events will help reinforce the impact of the conference in the international bridge community. The organizers are again in contact with publishers for a book that will collect selected papers presented at the conference in a convenient reference volume.
Let’s meet where the continents meet…
With sincere regards,
Polat Gülkan and Mustafa Can Yücel
Co-Chairs of the Scientific and Organizing Committee