Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
L. Sasek
Mott MacDonald Prague, Czech Republic
ABSTRACT: Launching of final composite bridge deck has all advantages of launching method such as
erection speed, lower costs and high quality of the bridge. Further innovation for composite bridges is the
position of sliding bearings and the sliding trace structure.
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Casting of the concrete slab in situ after launch acts as a very rigid stiffener. This solution substan-
of the steel frame causes problems for the contrac- tially decreases the tensile stresses in the concrete
tor and also for the designer. During concreting of slab. Inclined webs were designed for better placing
bridge deck the steel and composite structure change of launch bearings close to the steel webs.
the static system many times. The structure has to be The steel structure was designed specifically to
monitored during all building stages. Errors due to allow for this form of incremental launching. The
geometry of the structure, volume changes of concrete, upper flanges of the beams were made in a straight
change of elasticity modulus etc. must be all taken into alignment and the bottom flanges with a camber. For
consideration. For every building stage the designer this reason it was necessary to monitor the plane slid-
must calculate thousands of surveying points. These ing trace and the differences of the upper flange shape
are necessary to monitor the geometry differences of to avoid increase of tensile stresses in the concrete slab.
the steel structure during deck concreting, settlements The bottom surface of the upper flange that comes
of supports, creep and shrinkage of concrete, ther- in contact with launching bearings must allow for
mal changes, framework structure settlement and the geometrical tolerances.
weight changes caused by differences of concrete deck
thickness.
3 FURTHER INNOVATION WAS IN THE
STRUCTURE OF THE SLIDING TRACE
2 CONCEPTUAL DESIGN
In order to decrease local reactions, one light tem-
With regards to the above mentioned facts, we started
porary pier was used in every span. The permanent
to think about the incremental launching of the final
piers were designed to resist service load only. The
composite bridge deck not by means of steel beams
horizontal friction forces in service stage acting in
but by means of concrete deck. As mentioned pre-
the longitudinal direction are compensated with higher
viously, the final composite bridge deck is 4 times
vertical reaction. On the other hand, during launching,
heavier and if it was launched on steel beams it would
in some accidental cases high horizontal forces can
have caused substantial increase of the web and bottom
arise especially when the launching starts.
flange thickness. The reactions from the launch bear-
A special balanced static indeterminate system was
ing migrate along the whole length of the structure and
developed to decrease the horizontal loading on flex-
a greater steel weight is required.
ible piers and abutments and to ensure the stability of
In order to avoid this problem we decided to launch
temporary piers. The heads of all piers and abutments
the structure supported on the bottom surface of the
were connected by steel bars. The bars were partly
upper flange next to the beam web (Figure 3).
stressed from one abutment to the other and piers were
The concrete slab at this location is connected to
fixed to the bars. The temperature changes along the
the steel flange by means of studs and the beam web
whole bridge length caused the change of stresses in
bars without any deformation of piers. This system is
adjusted so that the stiffness and prestressing forces
are balanced in the way that no allowable stresses or
deformations were exceeded (Figure 4).
4 CONCLUSION
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technological processes and structural details. Launch- there were significant time savings in calculation of
ing of the viaduct has recently been completed. The bridge geometry in many erection stages. The struc-
contractor and investor were satisfied with the speed, ture was constructed with high accuracy. Finally, the
lower costs and high quality of the bridge. Eigh- architectural quality of structural elements is clearly
teen meters of finished bridge deck was produced recognizable and enhances the aesthetic qualities of
in seven days. From the designer’s point of view the bridge.
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