Gladesville Bridge
Coordinates: 33 ° 50 ′ 31 ″ S , 151 ° 8 ′ 52 ″ E
| Gladesville Bridge | ||
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| use | Road bridge, 7-lane | |
| Convicted | Victoria Road | |
| Crossing of | Parramatta River | |
| place | Sydney | |
| construction | Arch bridge | |
| Longest span | 305 m | |
| Clear height | 40.7 m | |
| start of building | 1959 | |
| opening | 2nd October 1964 | |
| planner | G. Maunsell & Partners | |
| location | ||
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The Gladesville Bridge is located in Sydney (New South Wales, Australia) about 6 km above the better-known Sydney Harbor Bridge on the Parramatta River near Gladesville . When it was built, it was the most widely spanned reinforced concrete arch bridge in the world at 305 m . It was later surpassed by the Krk Bridge . The span of 305 m is exactly 1000 feet . The height at the top of the arch is 41 meters.
The Gladesville Bridge is an arched bridge with four adjacent arches and an overhead carriageway. This also rests on narrow pairs of pillars with a common pillar head. The planning office was G. Maunsell & Partners from London, Eugène Freyssinet (with the engineer Yves Guyon ) was involved in the planning of the bridge as a consultant.
The bridge was built from 1959 to 1964. It was opened on October 2, 1964 and is used as a motorway (North West Freeway). It is linked to two other smaller bridges, the "Fig Tree Bridge" and "Tarban Creek Bridge". Seven lanes cross the bridge, three to the north and four to the south.
Before that, 300 meters to the west, there was an older bridge that was built in 1881. It still had a flap to allow ships to pass through. Only sandstone pillars can be seen of this bridge. Before that, you had to cross the river by ferry.
construction of the bridge
The sheets were built one after another in segments of hollow prestressed concrete blocks of barges to a falsework were hoisted. Very flat hydraulic presses ( vérins plats Freyssinet ) were inserted between some of the blocks . After an arch was completed, they were inflated with hydraulic fluid so that the arch expanded, lifted off the falsework, and supported itself. After the correct position was reached, the oil was replaced with concrete and a solid arch was made. The falsework was moved sideways and used for the next arch. The roadway was then placed on it from pre-tensioned pieces. The arch of the bridge stands on solid sandstone rock on both sides.
Ranking list
The Gladesville Bridge is no longer the longest arch bridge, but is in 5th place. There are also several steel arch bridges that are even wider. For concrete bridges the ranking is today (according to Judith Dupré 1997):
- Wangxiang Bridge 420 m (China)
- Krk Bridge 390 m (Croatia)
- Jiangjiehe Bridge 330 m (China)
- Yongjiang Bridge 312 m (China)
- Gladesville Bridge 305 m (Australia)
literature
- Powell, Carol. A River Revived: the Parramatta . Kensington, NSW: New South Wales University Press, 1987. ISBN 0-86840-138-2 .
- Russell, Eric. Drummoyne: a western suburbs' history from 1794 . Drummoyne, NSW: Council of the Municipality of Drummoyne, Second Edition, 1982. ISBN 0-9599312-1-X .
- R. Wedgwood, B. Shepherd: Gladesville Bridge Sydney: History and Performance . In: C. Abdunur (Ed.): ARCH'01, Third international arch bridges conference . Presses des Ponts et Chaussées, Paris 2001, ISBN 2-85978-347-4 , pp. 41 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
