Highway-Railway Framed
lap-joint. All elements were manufac-
Antiseismic Bridge
Owner:
Ministry of Railways
Contractor:
Mostotrest \ tinistry of Transport
Construction
Construction period:
14 months
Opened to traffic:
1981
The combined bridge over the gorge of
the Razdan River in Armenia includes a
steel strut-framed truss structure and
curved reinforced concrete approach
spans on flexible piers (fig. 2). The gorge
at the location of the bridge crossing is
over 250 meters wide, 110 meters deep; it
has vertical highly cracked walls in the
upper portion and steep slopes in the
lower one. The erection of piers on the
slopes of the gorge being effectively
prevented by lack of road access and ter-
rain the best solution lay in a double-
deck strut-framed superstructure with
the upper deck carrying the motorway
11.5 m wide with sidewalks each 1.5 m
ill!ZS4
560s9
Fig. 1: Superstructure elevation and plan view
their durability compared to that of a
wide, and the lower deck carrying one
railway track.
The material used for the superstructure
is steel 10 XCHL, 12 XTA (grade
C40), 15 XCHJ (grade C35) and 16
(grade C23). The total mass of steel, in-
cluding the deck, inspection facilities,
bearings, railings, expansion joints,
safety barriers and cornice amounts to
3276 tons.
The truss includes a collar-beam 5.7 m
wide and 14.38 m deep and strut sup-
ports 51.5 m high (as measured along the
vertical), which expand at the foot up to
24 m in width (fig. 1).
The distance between the centres of
vertical supports is 160 m, and the
total length of the collar beam is 33 x
8.25 m = 272 m.
The motorway and sidewalks are carried
by an orthotropic plate which is in-
tegrated with the main trusses.
The plate and the trusses are butt-
jointed, which increases considerably
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Structural Engineering International
tured at the plant using ordinary equip-
ment employed for production of stan-
dard railway bridge elements.
The joints of the main trusses are bolted
and welded. The double-sheet elements
of the trusses have stepwise field joints.
The connections of the slanting struts
with the collar beam, involving two gus-
set planes are located at an angle and
wrapped with cover plates and spatial
diaphragms.
Field welding was performed using me-
tal-chemical additive improving the
weld quality and reducing the construc-
tion time. All the erection for the truss
superstructure was done at the top level
of the gorge. Tower cranes were mount-
ed on the temporary platform for the
construction of foundations for the
strut supports and temporary piers for
the superstructure erection.
On the left-bank and right-bank rail-
road approaches the elements of the
central part were assembled to be an-
chor counterweights of the collar beam,
with the further cantilever erection of
the latter up to the temporary piers. Af-
ter this, the counterweights were dis-
manted, the portions of the collar beam
were anchored into the abutments, and
the cantilever erection went on, includ-
ing the top to bottom assembly of the
strut supports.
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On the completion of the half-frames
they were locked together and the design
forces were adjusted in accordance with
actual operating conditions.
Advanced equipment was used exten-
sively for improving the erection quality
within the stipulated tolerances: all
the joints were checked with ultrasonic
and gamma-ray flaw detectors; the
equipment included hydraulic pressure
gauges, torque wrenches, automatic
coping saw for cutting the edges of the
orthotropic plate, automatic equipment
for thermo-straightening of steel struc-
tures, etc.
During the recent disastrous earthquake
in Armenia (1988) the bridge escaped
any damage and continues its normal
operation.
The design solutions used for this
bridge were later employed for the
bridge across the River in Hanoi (Viet-
nam), and in some other projects.

Engineer:
Design Institute Giprotransmost Fig. 2: General iew of

Bridge Over the River Moskva in Moscow

Owner:
Mossovet
Contractor:
Mostotrest Ministry of Transport
Construction
Construction period:
60 months
Opened to traffic:
1989
The bridge over the River Moskva in the
Maryino-Brateevo district of Moscow
for six lanes (width 37.5 m, length
1500 m) includes the metal steel super-
structure over the riverbed, continuous
reinforced concrete approach spans
(fig. 2). The main bridge length is 733 m.
The riverbed section is 310 m long. It is
an all-steel construction girder super-
structure of constant height (89.12 +
127.5+89.12 m). The cross-section
(fig. 1) consists of two boxes 3.22 x 5.4 m
with deck cantilevers 7.65 and 5.17 m
wide, respectively, which are separated
for each direction of traffic. Each box
was assembled of flat elements on the
building slip. The walls are butt welded
using metal-chemical flux. The bridge
was erected by launching from one
bank, where the full cross-section seg-
ments were assembled. First the down-
stream box was assembled on the slip
aligned with the upstream box, and af-
ter advancing the box was shifted trans-
versely into position. Then the upstream
box was assembled on the same slip.
This procedure permitted reducing the
amount of materials required for the
auxiliary structures and the construc-
tion time of the whole bridge.
The superstructure launching was per-
formed with specially designed equip-
ment, consisting of vertical supports
hinged to the pier foundation and rods
and clamps attached to the edges of the
lower flange of the superstructure. For
the pusher two hydraulic jacks T,L-
185/1120 with 1100mm piston extension
were used. The launching rate was as
high as 6 m/hour.
The 127.5 m long span was erected
without a temporary support using a
36 m long nose attached to the assem-
bled nose girder already advanced 90
meters ahead into the span. The nose
was lifted from one end by a 100 t crane
and from the other end by tackle blocks
fixed to the extremity of the structure.
This procedure allowed reducing the
construction time, and also eliminated
the necessity of reinforcing the structure
to make it withstand the erection loads.
The bridge structure was completed in
two years.
The riverbed piers are separate for each
girder, including the foundations.
The foundations are made up of precast
driven-piles and a load-carrying vertical

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