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An orthotropic bridge or orthotropic deck is typically one whose fabricated deck consists of a structural steel deck plate stiffened either longitudinally with ribs or transversely, or in both directions. This allows the fabricated deck both to directly bear vehicular loads and to contribute to the bridge structure's overall load-bearing behaviour. The orthotropic deck may be integral with or supported on a grid of deck framing members, such as transverse floor beams and longitudinal girders. All these various choices for the stiffening elements, e.g., ribs, floor beams and main girders, can be interchanged, resulting in a great variety of orthotropic panels.
Decks with different stiffnesses in longitudinal and transverse directions are called 'orthotropic'. If the stiffnesses are similar in the two directions, then the deck is called 'isotropic'. [1]
The steel deck-plate-and-ribs system may be idealized for analytical purposes as an orthogonal-anisotropic plate, hence the abbreviated designation “orthotropic.”
The stiffening elements can serve several functions simultaneously. They enhance the bending resistance of the plate to allow it to carry local wheel loads and distribute those loads to main girders. They also increase the total cross-sectional area of steel in the plate, which can increase its contribution to the overall bending capacity of the deck (i.e. the deck plate acts as a top flange in a box or I beam girder). Finally, the stiffeners increase the resistance of the plate to buckling.
The same structural effects are also true of the concrete slab in a composite girder bridge, but the steel orthotropic deck is considerably lighter, and therefore allows longer span bridges to be more efficiently designed.
Resistance to use of an orthotropic deck relates mainly to its cost of fabrication, due to the amount of welding involved. In addition, it must be prefabricated rather than assembled on site, which offers less flexibility than in-situ concrete decks. Orthotropic decks have been prone to fatigue problems and to delamination of the wearing surface, which, like the deck, is also often of a very thin material to reduce weight. [2]
A German Engineer Dr. Cornelis of MAN Corporation was issued German patent No. 847014 in 1948. MAN's design manual was published in 1957 in German. In 1963 AISC published their manual based on North American design practices.
Thousands of orthotropic deck bridges are in existence throughout the world. Despite the savings and advantages (up to 25% of total bridge mass can be saved by reducing deck weight, as the weight reductions extend to cables, towers, piers, anchorages, and so forth), the US has only about 60 such bridge decks in use as of late2005 [update] . About 25% of orthotropic in the US are in California, including the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge, which is one of the first major bridges in the US to be built using an orthotropic deck.
Some very large cable-supported bridges, plus current record span (cable-stayed bridges and suspension bridges) would not be feasible without steel orthotropic decks. The longest or record span box girder, slant-leg bridges; arch bridges; movable bridges and two Norwegian floating bridges all use orthotropic decks.
The Millau Viaduct, a cable-stayed bridge at Millau, France, has the largest orthotropic steel deck area of any single bridge. The lower total gross weight of the superstructure allowed bridge launching from both ends of the Millau Viaduct.
The Akashi Kaikyō Bridge's orthotropic deck allowed the Japanese to build the longest span at about 6,000 ft (1,800 m), or 50% longer than the Golden Gate Bridge.
Orthotropic decks permit a very shallow deck depth which reduces the steepness of approach gradients and hence their costs. The form is also widely used on bascule and other moveable bridges where significant savings in the cost of the mechanical elements can be made where a lighter deck is used. The El Ferdan Railway Bridge across the Suez Canal of Egypt is the longest swing bridge in the world. The Erasmus Bridge has an orthotropic deck for both its cable-stayed bridge and bascule span. The Danziger Bridge of New Orleans is a very large vertical lift bridge.
The Mumbai Trans Harbour Link, also called Atal Setu, is India's first orthotropic steel deck bridge. It connects South Mumbai to Navi Mumbai's JNPT (Nhava Sheva) and has reduced travel time between Mumbai and Pune, Navi Mumbai, Goa and other cities in the south east of Pune.
It is possible to refit a bridge originally designed with a concrete or non-structural deck to use a lighter orthotropic deck, which has been done to preserve or extend the load-carrying life of key or landmark bridges around the world.
It was first utilized in North America in 1975, on the Lions Gate Bridge in Vancouver, which was completed in 1938 with exceptionally light design. The original concrete deck of the 670 m (2,200 ft) North Viaduct of the Lions Gate Bridge was replaced with a lighter and wider orthotropic deck, carried out in sections using a series of short closures of the bridge. [3] Cantilever orthotropic decks allowed the Tamar Bridge to remain open whilst the main deck was replaced in 1999. An ambitious orthotropic replacement of the entire original suspended structure of the main suspension portion of the Lions Gate Bridge was undertaken 2000–2001 and completed without interruption in peak-hour traffic, resulting in the 63-year old bridge, not designed for durability, getting a new lease of life. [4]
Another notable example, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, completed in 1937, originally used a concrete deck. Salt carried by fog or mist reached the rebar, causing corrosion and concrete spalling. From 1982 to 1986, the original bridge deck, in 747 sections, was replaced with lighter, stronger orthotropic steel deck panels over 401 nights without closing the roadway completely to traffic. [5] The project not only restored the bridge to prime condition but also reduced the deck weight by 12,300 tons (11,160 metric tons).
A suspension bridge is a type of bridge in which the deck is hung below suspension cables on vertical suspenders. The first modern examples of this type of bridge were built in the early 1800s. Simple suspension bridges, which lack vertical suspenders, have a long history in many mountainous parts of the world.
A cable-stayed bridge has one or more towers, from which cables support the bridge deck. A distinctive feature are the cables or stays, which run directly from the tower to the deck, normally forming a fan-like pattern or a series of parallel lines. This is in contrast to the modern suspension bridge, where the cables supporting the deck are suspended vertically from the main cable, anchored at both ends of the bridge and running between the towers. The cable-stayed bridge is optimal for spans longer than cantilever bridges and shorter than suspension bridges. This is the range within which cantilever bridges would rapidly grow heavier, and suspension bridge cabling would be more costly.
The Lions Gate Bridge, opened in 1938 and officially known as the First Narrows Bridge, is a suspension bridge that crosses the first narrows of Burrard Inlet and connects the City of Vancouver, British Columbia, to the North Shore municipalities of the District of North Vancouver, the City of North Vancouver, and West Vancouver. The term "Lions Gate" refers to the Lions, a pair of mountain peaks north of Vancouver. Northbound traffic on the bridge heads in their general direction. A pair of cast concrete lions, designed by sculptor Charles Marega, were placed on either side of the south approach to the bridge in January 1939.
A plate girder bridge is a bridge supported by two or more plate girders.
A box girder bridge, or box section bridge, is a bridge in which the main beams comprise girders in the shape of a hollow box. The box girder normally comprises prestressed concrete, structural steel, or a composite of steel and reinforced concrete. The box is typically rectangular or trapezoidal in cross-section. Box girder bridges are commonly used for highway flyovers and for modern elevated structures of light rail transport. Although the box girder bridge is normally a form of beam bridge, box girders may also be used on cable-stayed and other bridges.
The Tampico Bridge is a vehicular cable-stayed bridge connecting the Mexican states of Tamaulipas and Veracruz in eastern Mexico.
The Nordhordland Bridge is a combined cable-stayed and pontoon bridge which crosses Salhusfjorden between Klauvaneset and the island of Flatøy in Vestland county, Norway. It is 1,614 meters (5,295 ft) long, of which the pontoon section is 1,246 meters (4,088 ft) long. The cable-stayed section consists of a single 99-meter (325 ft) tall H-pylon which has a length of 368 meters (1,207 ft) and a main span of 172 meters (564 ft). This allows for a clearance of 32 meters (105 ft).
An extradosed bridge employs a structure that combines the main elements of both a prestressed box girder bridge and a cable-stayed bridge. The name comes from the word extrados, the exterior or upper curve of an arch, and refers to how the "stay cables" on an extradosed bridge are not considered as such in the design, but are instead treated as external prestressing tendons deviating upward from the deck. In this concept, they remain part of the main bridge superstructure.
The Hale Boggs Memorial Bridge is a cable-stayed bridge over the Mississippi River in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana. It is named for the late United States Congressman Hale Boggs.
A girder bridge is a bridge that uses girders as the means of supporting its deck. The two most common types of modern steel girder bridges are plate and box.
The Erasmusbrug is a combined cable-stayed and bascule bridge, construction began in 1986 and was completed in 1996. It crosses the Nieuwe Maas in the centre of Rotterdam, connecting the north and south parts of this city, second largest in the Netherlands. The bridge was named in 1992 after Desiderius Erasmus, a prominent Christian Renaissance humanist also known as Erasmus of Rotterdam. The Erasmus Bridge is Rotterdam's most important landmark and is even part of the city's official logo.
The Papineau-Leblanc Bridge was one of the first cable-stayed spans in North America. It is part of Quebec Autoroute 19 and is one of the connections between Laval and Montreal, Quebec, Canada, spanning Rivière des Prairies. It was fabricated from weathering steel and has an orthotropic deck. The freeway ends abruptly at the southern end of the bridge at the intersection of Henri Bourassa Boulevard, where Autoroute 19 follows Avenue Papineau down to Quebec Autoroute 40.
A deck is the surface of a bridge. A structural element of its superstructure, it may be constructed of concrete, steel, open grating, or wood. Sometimes the deck is covered by a railroad bed and track, asphalt concrete, or other form of pavement for ease of vehicle crossing. A concrete deck may be an integral part of the bridge structure or it may be supported with I-beams or steel girders.
The James E. Roberts Memorial Bridge is a 1,400 foot two-lane highway bridge along the California State Route 120/California State Route 49 concurrency, in Tuolumne County, California. The bridge spans the Tuolumne River just north of Lake Don Pedro, near the community of Chinese Camp. It opened in 1971.
The San Mateo–Hayward Bridge is a bridge crossing the American state of California's San Francisco Bay, linking the San Francisco Peninsula with the East Bay. The bridge's western end is in Foster City, a suburb on the eastern edge of San Mateo. The eastern end of the bridge is in Hayward. It is the longest fixed-link bridge in California and the 25th longest in the world by length. The bridge is owned by the state of California, and is maintained by California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), the state highway agency. Further oversight is provided by the Bay Area Toll Authority (BATA).
The Adomi Bridge is a latticed steel arch suspension bridge crossing the Volta River at Atimpoku in Ghana in West Africa. It is the first permanent bridge to span the Volta River, which drains south into the Gulf of Guinea, and is Ghana's longest suspension bridge. It provides the main road passage, just south of the Akosombo Dam, between the Eastern Region and the Volta Region of Ghana. It was opened in 1957 by Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's first president. The iconic crescent-shaped arch bridge is featured in Ghanaian stamps and currency.
Incremental launch is a method in civil engineering of building a complete bridge deck from one abutment of the bridge only, manufacturing the superstructure of the bridge by sections to the other side. In current applications, the method is highly mechanised and uses pre-stressed concrete.
The Surtees Rail Bridge is a rail bridge on the Tees Valley Line over the River Tees in the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees. The bridge is south of Stockton-on-Tees town centre and just north of the adjacent Surtees Bridge which carries the A66 road. The bridge is built on the site of a series of Tees Bridges alternating between two adjacent crossing sites.
The Queensway Twin Bridges connect downtown Long Beach with the outer Port of Long Beach. They are the southernmost crossing of the Los Angeles River, near the mouth of the river, where it empties into Queensway Bay, and they are the primary arterial link between Long Beach and RMS Queen Mary. The bridges were completed in June 1970 and opened on October 5, 1970.
Buckland & Taylor Ltd was a Canadian structural engineering firm specializing in bridge design and also research and building code development. It was founded in 1972 by Peter G. Buckland and Peter R. Taylor. Both had had experience with the design of major bridges. The firm continued until it was merged into COWI North America, a subsidiary of COWI A/S of Denmark, in 2015.
Cold Regions Engineering: Cold Regions Impacts on Transportation and Infrastructure
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Examples of famous bridges with orthotropic steel decks
Dutch: Erasmus Orthotropic Bridge = Erasmusbrug (Brug = bridge in Dutch)
French: Pont Gustave-Flaubert (Pont = bridge and orthotrope = orthotropic in French)
German: Erasmus-Brücke (Brücke = bridge and orthotrop = orthotropic in German)
Brazilian Portuguese: The Juscelino Kubitschek Bridge (Portuguese: Ponte Juscelino Kubitschek) (Ponte = bridge in Portuguese)
Italian Ponte sullo Stretto di Messina (Ponte = Bridge in Italian)
Norwegian: Nordhordland Bridge = Nordhordlandsbrua (Brua = bridge in Norwegian)