Riccardo Morandi

Riccardo Morandi

Riccardo Morandi (born September 1, 1902 in Rome ; † December 25, 1989 there ) was an Italian civil engineer . He became known for his prestressed concrete bridges and as a pioneer of cable-stayed bridges .

Life

After completing his engineering degree in 1927 (Laurea's degree), Morandi worked in Calabria and came across the usefulness of prestressed concrete in the repair of earthquake damage. In 1931 he opened his own engineering office. An early project was the Church of St. Barbara in Colleferro (1937). In 1948 he patented a prestressed concrete system named after him and used it in 1953 to reinforce the Verona Arena . With his office in Rome, he then mainly designed cinema buildings and bridges. He was also involved in the expansion of the Rome Fiumicino airport (1970). Another well-known project of his is Pavilion No. 5, Turin Motor Show , which he designed in 1959 and which is regarded as an outstanding building of Italian rationalism . Morandi taught bridge construction at the University of Florence from 1959 to 1969 and from 1969 to 1972 bridge construction at the La Sapienza University in Rome.

Morandi was a pioneer of cable-stayed bridge construction, initially using only one suspension cable on both sides of the bridge on the Maracaibo Bridge (type bridle bridge ). Later (from the 1970s) several suspension ropes were usually used, which were arranged at different distances on the track girder, which Morandi did not do. The bending stresses of the deck girder were therefore greater, which it partially compensated for by the construction of the pylons. In the case of the Maracaibo, Polcevera and Wadi-al-Kuf bridges, these were designed as large, rigid A-shaped pylons with an additional V-shaped support in the longitudinal direction, which also supported the deck girder. The suspension cables (except for the Maracaibo Bridge) were coated with concrete for corrosion protection, flexural rigidity and for aesthetic reasons (concrete bracing made from prestressed concrete). Statically, the part of the bridge around a pylon was more like a continuous girder with a rigid support where the cables were attached to the track girder, and not as in the later versions with several ropes of a continuous, elastically supported girder. Another typical feature was a roadway girder with static bearings - between the pylons there was a suspension girder which, among other things, served to absorb the temperature expansion and other loads such as shrinkage and creep of the concrete. The Viadotto Ansa del Tevere bridge and the Carpineto bridge were smaller and the supporting cables were also anchored on one side.

After the collapse of the Polcevera Viaduct in Genoa in 2018 and before it ( Antonio Brencich ), its inclined bridge system was severely criticized, especially the concrete anchoring of the suspension ropes, as this type of anchoring prevented the ropes from being visually inspected and corrosion damage, for example, could go unnoticed.

He won the international competition to build the Maracaibo Bridge , which earned him a lot of international prestige. In 1961 he won a competition in Egypt to save the Abu Simbel temple , but his proposal was not implemented.

From 1971 he had a research professorship at the University of Florida . Morandi held honorary doctorates from the Technical University of Munich (1979) and the University of Reggio Calabria . In 1980 he received the gold medal of the Institution of Structural Engineers and in 1970 the Freyssinet Medal .

Bridge constructions

The bridges planned by Riccardo Morandi include:

Illustration	Surname	Place, body of water	country	construction time	comment
	Ponte di San Niccolò	Florence	Italy	1948/49
	Ponte Morandi	Province of Lucca , Lake Vagli	Italy	1953-1955
	Paul Sauer Bridge (Storms River Bridge)	Eastern Cape , Storms River	South Africa	1954-1956
	Ponte Amerigo Vespucci	Florence , Arno	Italy	1955-1957
	Ponte Bisantis	Catanzaro , Fiumarella	Italy	1958–1962
	General Rafael Urdaneta Bridge	Maracaibo , Lake Maracaibo	Venezuela	1959-1962	The world's first cable-stayed bridge made of concrete. Changes to the shipping channel increased the salt content in the lake, which led to corrosion problems. Often called simply Maracaibo Bridge or Bridge over Lake Maracaibo.
	Capograssi Bridge	Sulmona	Italy	1960–1962
	Kinnaird Bridge	Castlegar , Columbia River	Canada	1963-1965
	Polcevera Viaduct	Genoa , Polcevera	Italy	1963-1967	Partial collapse on August 14, 2018 , remains blown up on June 28, 2019. Often referred to simply as the Morandi Bridge.
	Viadotto Ansa del Tevere	Rome	Italy	0000-1967	Also called the Magliana Bridge.
	Bridge over the Wadi al-Kuf	west of al-Baida	Libya	1967-1971	Up to 1984 the greatest clear height of all bridges in Africa. Closed for safety reasons since 2017 due to the risk of collapse.
	Puente Pumarejo	Barranquilla , Río Magdalena	Colombia	1970-1974	Largest bridge in Colombia until 1997. Official name: Puente Laureano Gómez , but popularly called Puente Pumarejo, but often also a bridge over the Río Magdalena. Was the end of 2019 because of insufficient lights height replaced and partially demolished.
	Carpineto Bridge	Raccordo autostradale 5	Italy	0000-1977

Fonts

• The Viadotto dell Ansa della Magliana on the Autostrada Roma-Aeroporta di Fiumicino. L'Industria Italiana del Cemento 1968, pp. 147-162.
• Il ponte sul fiume Magdalena a Barranquilla (Colombia). L'Industria Italiana del Cemento 1974, pp. 383-406.
• Il viadotto Carpineto l per la strada di grande comunicazione Basentana. L'Industria Italiana del Cemento 1977, pp. 817-830.
• Il Viadotto sul Polcevera per l'autostrada Genova-Savona. L'Industria Ital. del Cemento 1967, pp. 849-872.

literature

• Giorgio Boaga, Benito Boni: The concrete architecture of Riccardo Morandi , Alec Tiranti 1965 (Italian edition Riccardo Morandi Edita di Comunità 1962)
• Giorgio Boaga: Riccardo Morandi , Rizzoli 1987

Web links

Commons : Riccardo Morandi  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Riccardo Morandi in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature by and about Riccardo Morandi in the bibliographic database WorldCat
• Riccardo Morandi. In: arch INFORM .
• Entry about Riccardo Morandi on structurae.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Svensson, cable-stayed bridges - 40 years of experience worldwide, Ernst and Son 2011, p. 92
2. ↑ Archiform, Underground Motor Show, Turin
3. ↑ For example Maracaibo, Wadi-al-Kuf, Polcevera Viaduct
4. ↑ The static determination of the girder system also resulted in “predetermined breaking points” between the pylons, so that in the event of an earthquake, one would not drag the other along if the connecting girder between two pylons was destroyed. That was z. B. one of the demands on the Maracaibo Bridge. Hanns Simons, Heinz Wind, W. Hans Moser: The bridge over the Maracaibo lake in Venezuela: General Rafael Urdaneta bridge. Bauverlag, Wiesbaden, Berlin 1963, p. 12
5. ^ TU Munich honorary doctorates , TU Munich, accessed on August 18, 2018
6. ↑ Rosa Muñoz Lima: In Venezuela, too, a Morandi bridge is fighting for its stability. In: dw.com. August 16, 2018, accessed on July 3, 2019 : “Over the years, the salinity of Lake Maracaibo has turned out to be the greatest danger. The FLSTP (Fundación Laboratorio de Servicios Técnicos Petroleros) of the University of Zulia has been responsible for maintenance for more than two decades. "The pylons on the Maracaibo side are the most damaged because of their proximity to the fairway," explains engineer Alfredo Navarro. The pictures of the damage alarmed the public three years ago. " 
7. ^ Remaining pillars of the collapsed bridge in Genoa blown up. In: Spiegel.de. June 28, 2019, accessed July 3, 2019 . 

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