Medway Viaducts
Coordinates: 51 ° 22 ′ 33 " N , 0 ° 28 ′ 32" E
| Medway Viaducts | ||
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| Convicted |
 , High speed 1
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| Crossing of | River Medway | |
| place | near Rochester (Kent) | |
| construction | Prestressed concrete - box girder bridges | |
| Longest span | 152.4 m | |
| start of building | 1960, 2001, 2001 | |
| completion | 1963, 2003, 2003 | |
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Medway Viaducts is the uniform name for three bridges over the River Medway near Rochester in the south-east English Borough of Medway . The motorway bridge for the M2 motorway opened in 1963 was supplemented by a second bridge in 2003; in the same year the bridge of the high-speed line High Speed 1 (originally Channel Tunnel Rail Link - CTRL ) was opened to traffic.
Medway Viaduct (1963)
The motorway bridge was the most important part of the new M2, which was primarily intended to relieve the A2 road from London to Dover with its passage in Rochester and the narrow Rochester Bridge over the Medway.
It had two lanes and a hard shoulder in each direction. There was a walkway on either side that was wide enough to serve as a maintenance road.
The bridge, designed by Freeman Fox & Partners , was built between 1960 and 1963 by a joint venture between JL Kier & Co. and Christiani & Nielsen. It was the first bridge in the UK , in which the by Ulrich Finsterwalder developed method was applied, prestressed concrete - girder bridges from a pillar of the cantilever to build with double-sided sections, concrete cantilevers.
The total length of the bridge is 997.5 m (3272 ft 6 in. ). It was originally 34.60 m (113 ft 6 in.) Wide, with an additional 3.66 m (12 ft) wide deceleration and acceleration lanes at the northwest end for the A228 crossing.
The river bridge has a 152.4 m (500 ft) main opening and two 95.3 m (312 ft 6 in.) Side openings. They are adjoined by the 411.5 m (1350 ft) northwest foreland bridge with 11 openings and the 243.1 m (797 ft 6 in.) Long southeast foreland bridge with 7 openings.
The bridge had two separate superstructures for the two directional lanes. With the exception of a 30 m wide gap in the middle, the superstructures of the river bridge consist of two parallel, three-cell, haunched pre- stressed concrete - hollow boxes , the cover slabs of which support the roadways. The box girders are 11.3 m (37 ft) wide and their height decreases from 10.8 m (35 ft 6 in.) At the pillars to 2.7 m (9 ft) at the end of the cantilever girders on the land side. 2.2 m (7 ft 4 in.) On the river side. The gap in the middle was closed by two prestressed concrete suspension girders, the slabs of which are each supported by a narrow box girder and three beams.
The two wall-like pillars of the river bridge, extending almost the entire width of the superstructures, are 3.0 m (10 ft) wide at the bottom and 1.8 m (6 ft) wide at the top. Their lower part consists of solid reinforced concrete , above the highest water level they have a 7-cell hollow cross-section.
The superstructures of the approach bridges also consist of prefabricated hollow boxes and beams and an in-situ concrete deck. They are supported by rectangular reinforced concrete pillars connected by a crossbar.
Medway Viaduct (2003)
In November 1999, a flat-rate contract was signed with the CSM consortium ( Costain , Skanska and Mowlem ) for the planning and execution of the widening of the M2. As part of this contract, another bridge was built between March 2001 and June 2003 for traffic to London.
It stands 20 m west of the older bridge and has the same dimensions and profile in length. It has four lanes and one hard shoulder, because instead of a deceleration lane a full lane was created for the exit to the crossing A228, which began long before the bridge at the entrance to the A229.
The prestressed concrete bridge, which carries only one directional carriageway, has a superstructure with a 20.5 m wide carriageway slab and only one box girder.
Reconstruction of the old bridge (2003)
In 2002, all traffic on the M2 was temporarily relocated to the neighboring new Medway Viaduct. The old bridge was then renovated and rebuilt. Among other things, the prestressed concrete suspension beam was replaced by a steel construction. The separate carriageway slabs were connected to create a uniform one-way carriageway with 4 lanes and a hard shoulder, and their width was reduced to 30 m.
After these renovations, completed in 2003, it now only carries traffic towards Dover . The fourth lane begins north of the bridge with the entrance from the crossing A228. On the east side, behind a guardrail designed as a reinforced, high railing, runs a footpath and cycle path that leads the North Downs Way across the Medway valley.
Both bridges are illuminated and equipped with surveillance cameras.
Medway Viaduct (HS1)
The western of the three bridges is the railway bridge that runs the High Speed 1 high-speed line over the Medway. It was built - at the same time as the second motorway bridge - between 2001 and 2003 by the Eurolink joint venture made up of Vinci Construction Grands Projets , Morgan Est and Beton- und Monierbau (now BeMo Tunneling UK), but was completed a little earlier than the motorway bridge.
The double-track bridge is 1255 m long and 11 m wide.
The river bridge has the same pillar spacing of 95.3 + 152.3 + 95.3 m as the neighboring motorway bridges. The adjoining approach bridges have 40.5 m wide pillar spacing. The strongly haunched, single-cell prestressed concrete box girder of the river bridge was built using cantilever construction, the box girders of the approach bridges were pushed in using the incremental launching method . The river bridge has V-shaped pillars to better transfer the longitudinal forces from braking into the subsoil.
During a test run on July 30, 2003, a new speed record for British railways was set at 334.7 km / h.
The first construction phase of HS1 and with it the bridge was formally accepted on September 16, 2003; Scheduled rail operations began on September 28, 2003.
Web links
- New Medway Viaducts. Photo series on roads.org.uk
- The Medway Bridge. Opening Booklet , Cement and Concrete Association, London 1962, on roads.org.uk (PDF; 1 MB)
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Medway Bridge Opening Booklet on roads.org.uk (PDF; 1 MB)
- ↑ Ulrich Finsterwalder, Herbert Schambeck: From the Lahn bridge Balduinstein to the Rhine bridge Bendorf. In: Der Bauingenieur , 40th year, issue 3 from March 1965, pp. 85–91, p. 86
- ^ New Medway bridge nears completion. Press release of the Highways Agency from July 16, 2002 on wired-gov.net
- ^ DA Smith: Refurbishment of the old Medway bridge, UK. (Summary) In: Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Bridge Engineering , Volume 158, Issue 3, September 2005, pp. 129-139
- ↑ a b Spiro N. Pollalis: Channel Tunnel Rail Link. Risk Transfer and Innovation in Project Delivery. Contribution by Harvard Design School, p. 25: Contract 350: Medway Crossing (PDF; 1.5 MB)
- ↑ Channel Tunnel Rail Link (HS1) on Vinci-construction-projets.com/en/
- ↑ D. Phillips: The design and construction of Medway Viaduct (abstract)
- ↑ How do you build a high speed rail network that connects communities as well as cities? on Arup.com
- ↑ Train smashes speed record. BBC News dated July 30, 2003