Lupu Bridge marks construction breakthroughs
26/6/2003 15:10
Construction of the Lupu Bridge, the longest arch bridge in the world,
made several breakthroughs in bridge building technique, officials from the
Shanghai Science Commission and Shanghai Municipal Engineering Administration
Bureau said yesterday.
With a span of 550 meters, the two piers of the
bridge need to stand on hard ground that can sustain the outward or lateral
stress of the arch. Yet Shanghai's coastal soft ground cannot support the 20,000
tons of lateral stress.
To tackle the problem, Shanghai Science
Commission and Engineering Administration jointly established eight construction
research teams. The final scheme uses various techniques in cable-stayed bridge,
suspension bridge and arch bridge building. Lupu Bridge is supported by 16
lateral catenaries, each holding 1100 tons of force, and a ground support device
that holds 1700 tons of stress.
In a recent suspension test, 36 trucks,
each with 30 tons load capacity, drove over the Lupu Bridge at the same time.
The bridge floor sunk 11.6 cm under the 1000 ton-load, which is within the
flexible sink limitation.
Construction of the bridge is also remarkable
for precise jointing. The bridge is built with 35,000 tons of steel, with the
jointing temperature, climate and assembling process precisely calculated.
The 7. 5 cm thick tar-paved road surface of the bridge is pitched in
eight layers through twelve steps.
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