Lange overspanningen in geprefabriceerd beton

Abstract

The Netherlands is a densely populated country with a congested road and railway network. Therefore more and more highways are widened and expanded. These wider highways create a demand for bridges which are suited for longer spans. These bridge solutions should constructed with a minimum of hindrance for other traffic. Rijkswaterstaat, also wishes to reduce the number of intermediate supports so the space underneath a viaduct can be used more freely. The currently most used solution to build a highway overpass without disrupting the traffic too much is a concrete viaduct consisting of prefabricated prestressed concrete bridge beams. But for spans longer than 60 meters those beams become too long and too heavy for transport by truck to the building site. Therefore the existing bridge solutions are reaching the maximum distance to which they can be built. The primary goal of this report is to find a concrete bridge solution with which it is possible to construct longer bridge spans in prefabricated concrete up to 100 meters. With such a bridge solution it is also possible to span a waterway or a small river in the Netherlands. A beam bridge in which the beam is composed of three parts is the most suitable solution to build these longer spans in prefabricated concrete. This solution can be constructed with relatively little hindrance for the other traffic. This solution is also relatively flexible in the shapes of bridge decks that can be constructed, skew bridges and wide bridge decks are both possible. The design of this beam bridge is extended and analyzed with a more detailed calculation. A bridge span of 100 meters is possible with a construction height of only 3 meters. This relatively slender design is possible because high strength concrete is used and because the bridge deck is designed to spread the traffic load efficiently over the full width of the bridge deck. The beam parts of this bridge can be transported by truck to its destination.
A rough cost estimation shows that the designed solution is expensive compared to existing concrete beam bridges, but it is also possible that the designed solution has a lower cost price compared to existing solutions in steel. It is advised to continue the research to and development of the bridge design because of the possible lower cost price and because with this design, bridges can be constructed which currently cannot easily be constructed with the existing solutions.