Overview

• Researchers from UPV and UVigo, working under the Ministry of Science–funded Pont3 project, published a Nature paper identifying six interacting mechanisms that preserve system capacity after local failures in steel truss bridges.
• The team experimentally and analytically characterized how damaged elements redistribute forces through secondary mechanisms, preventing disproportionate collapse in many scenarios.
• They report that some damaged truss bridges can continue to resist loads greater than typical service levels without collapsing, clarifying why functionality can persist after element-level damage.
• Biomimetic comparisons with spider webs, including prior Nature research, were used to explain adaptive, damage-tolerant behavior that underpins the observed resilience.
• The results are intended to inform robustness requirements and improve monitoring, evaluation, and reinforcement strategies for existing and future bridges, many of which are aging, with local relevance noted for truss spans still in service in the Valencian Community.