Design of long span modular bridges for traffic detours

The oncoming large amount of bridge replacements in the next 10 to 20 years called for a detailed examination of available replacement schemes which can have variable impact on user costs. Detouring traffic with a modular bridge proved to be the most desirable scheme in terms of user costs such as traffic delays, detour distances, ultimate highway geometrics, construction crew safety, and safety of drivers. Criteria that encompassed modular bridge design were defined and two companies in North America - Acrow and Mabey - were found to provide bridges within those parameters. A brief analysis of Acrow bridges showed that maximum span lengths range in the order of 100m; this is fairly short compared to spans of many bridges that will be have to soon be replaced. The current bridge system with which modularity is achieved is a set of truss panels which are supported by abutments or piers. In order to span crossing over 100m, piers would have to be placed in the channel or on the head-slopes which is a costly and undesirable construction process. Therefore, a modular bridge which could achieve longer spans was proposed for a 2 lane and a 3 lane wide bridges using as many existing Acrow components as possible. The scheme encompasses a harp cable-stay bridge with cables spaced and sized such that they are fully interchangeable between the various bridge widths and can be built up to any span. These cables are the only additional component as the towers, the girders, and the decks are all made out of existing Acrow components.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2009

Author dc:creator

• Potapova, Svetlana (Svetlana S.)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Jerome J. Connor.

• Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/53076

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/53076