AURELiA develops automated WAAM-based repair for end-of-life steel railway bridges — extending their service life by 25–50 years while cutting costs and CO₂ emissions by at least 30%.
Discover the Project ↓Around 300,000 European railway bridges are reaching their design life limit. The European Green Deal aims to shift 75% of freight to rail by 2050 — but complete bridge replacement is unsustainable: extreme costs, enormous environmental impact, and prolonged traffic interruptions.
AURELiA proposes an alternative: automated robotic repair using Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM), depositing metal directly onto damaged areas without manual intervention — the first integration of automated WAAM, digital twin and virtual commissioning for steel railway bridge repair.
Discover how AURELiA repairs steel railway bridges with robotic Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing.
Recover within 90% of as-new capacity on repaired steel bridge components using robotic WAAM deposition.
Add 25–50 years of operational life to end-of-life steel railway bridges, avoiding full replacement.
Achieve >90% automation of the repair workflow, eliminating dependence on manual operator skills.
Reduce lifecycle costs and CO₂ emissions by at least 30% compared to full bridge replacement.
Develop calibrated FEM models and virtual commissioning validated against real experimental data.
Remove humans from hazardous manual welding environments through fully robotic intervention.
Analysis of typical steel bridge defects, case study selection, definition of WAAM process parameters (material, deposition geometry, process settings).
Experimental repair campaigns on specimens and real components (IPE/HEA beams + plates), mechanical characterisation, robotic process optimisation.
Digital twin development, pre/post-repair FEM simulation, virtual commissioning on a real case study, model validation with WP2 experimental data.
Scientific publications, open-access operational guidelines, stakeholder dissemination, contribution to future EN/Eurocode standardisation.
Overall coordination, Fondazione Falck reporting, TUM partner management, milestone and budget monitoring.
Scholarship for young researchers in engineering and innovation
Bridging academic research and industrial application
AURELiA and BriBotic are independent but deeply complementary research initiatives, together delivering the full pipeline for autonomous steel bridge repair.
WAAM repair process development, digital twin and virtual commissioning — validating the repair technology from lab specimens to structural demonstrators.
Mobile robotic platform that autonomously navigates to damaged bridge locations and executes repair in the field — using WAAM, Laser DED, and Cold Spray.
Visit BriBotic →AURELiA develops and validates the repair process. BriBotic brings the robot to the bridge. Together, they close the loop from laboratory research to field-ready autonomous repair of Europe's ageing steel railway infrastructure.
The project officially launched on 1 June 2026. The kick-off meeting was held at the SITEC Laboratory (Politecnico di Milano, Department of Mechanical Engineering), featuring a tour of the facility and a live demonstration of robotic additive deposition, followed by the presentation of the project objectives, work plan and next steps.
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