Elsevier

Structures

Volume 26, August 2020, Pages 755-764
Structures

Rotation construction of heavy swivel arch bridge for high-speed railway

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.istruc.2020.04.052Get rights and content

Abstract

Superstructure rotation method (SRM) can optimize bridge construction in terms of reducing impacts on traffic, safety and overall budget. This paper focus on the key scientific problems of the swivel arch bridge, and takes the world’s largest high-speed railway swivel arch bridge on soft soil foundation over Hu-Hang highway as the engineering background. Construction technologies of this project including the installation process, design of the traction system and the precision control method are introduced. Optimum design method of tension force of the tie bars which considering 7 different load conditions during the construction process is proposed. As the key element of the construction of swivel arch bridge, a complete design process of the spherical hinge is present in detail. Exact analytical solution to determine the relationship of radial stress and upper load, which based on the solution of concentrated force acting on the half-plane body in the elastic mechanics, has been firstly put forward and compared with the simplified method recommended by codes. Meanwhile, reasonable ranges of geometric and material parameters have been given and elaborate design flows of the spherical hinge have been presented. Besides, overturning resistance checking design of the spherical hinge during the construction process have been presented also, which are particularly instructive for engineers and designers.

Introduction

Superstructure rotation method (SRM), first applied in 1940 s and also known as central bearing rotation method or the rotating deck construction method, provides an optimal construction method for bridges crossing obstacles with challenging traffic or access conditions, for instance, gorge, cliff, rivers or existing lines which cannot be assembled on temporary supports. SRM significantly simplifies and accelerates the construction of bridges, and is much more efficient than other methods that are possibly expensive, resource-wasting and time-consuming.

SRM usually divides the main span of bridges into two parts parallel or vertical to the barrier independently, and then rotates the superstructure into final position and fits together [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]. Existence of the spherical hinge will keep the superstructures swivel smoothly and stably during the rotation process. Compared with other traditional construction methods, SRM could reduce the impact on traffic, improve construction safety, shorten the duration of the project and optimize the budget [6], [7]. This method has been successfully applied to hundreds of bridges throughout the North America, Austria, Europe and Asian countries. Including continuous girder bridges [8], arch bridges [9], [10], cable-stayed bridges [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16] and so on [17]. Along with the development of construction technology, evolution of the SRM method happened which originated from military pontoon bridges in 1950s [18], [19]. In recent years, the superstructure rotation method has even been achieved via floatation in Europe [20], [21], [22] and for the first time in the construction of a large single-span arch footbridge built over the biggest river in Poland [23].

The authors collected hundreds of bridges in swivel construction from published papers, reports and websites all over the world. Fig. 1 shows 112 bridges of the collected database with elaborate swivel tonnage information. There are two obvious trends for the construction of swivel bridges: (1) the application is widespread after years of development; (2) swivel tonnage is generally small before 2000s, while it ushered in a qualitative leap in 2000 and even break through 30,000 t as marked in 2018. With the prosperity of economy and the increment of traffic volume, the growth trend will last for years. Great challenges have been brought to the design and construction of swivel bridges due to the expansion of swivel tonnage.

In spite of current engineering practices, construction codes and design standards of swivel bridges obviously lag behind to the practical experiences, no elaborate technical criterion has been developed on this matter. Due to the massive engineering quantities, complex construction process and mechanical behavior, design of the spherical hinge still needs to rely on experiences (such as material selection, dimension determination, computational model which will determine the design scheme to a great extent), especially when facing large swivel tonnage. As a critical part of swivel construction process, detailed design method of the spherical hinge has not been presented in most of the current articles, and specific design calculation processes are always being overlooked. Therefore, a gap existed between engineering application and scientific research to the best knowledge of authors.

Design of the pile cap of swivel bridges is also critical when suffering bad foundation conditions, especially when facing large tonnage and soft soil foundation at the same time which exactly as the project mentioned in this article. In order to solve the complicate problems of pile cap design, the conic surface spatial strut-and-tie model (STM) has been put forward previously [24], thus to realize construction of the largest swivel arch bridge on soft soil foundation. Therefore, this paper mainly focuses on the elaborate design flow of spherical hinge, including material selection and geometric dimension determination, analytical solution of the relationship between radial stress and upper load is put forward and compared with the simplified method. Besides, anti-overturning design method of the spherical hinge are presented as well. The authors expect that this study could provide information to the subsequent engineering practice and offer inspiration for other designers.

Section snippets

Swivel arch bridge description

This study mainly based on the swivel arch bridge of Shanghai-Hangzhou high-speed railway which cross the existing Hu-Hang highway. Shanghai-Hangzhou railway transportation project is the key element of passenger dedicated network with the highest operational speed of 350 km/h, which is one of the most important and heavily traffic transport routes in China. Due to the fact that tremendous amount of traffic can only be interrupted for a short time during the construction process, the

Installation process of spherical hinge

Spherical hinge of the Shanghai-Hangzhou high-speed railway swivel arch bridge is divided into upper and lower turntable systems, which consist of spherical surface panel, stiffened ribs, center axis, polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) slider layer, etc. First step of spherical hinge construction is pouring of the lower turntable. As installation of the spherical hinge and concrete pouring process of the pile caps are conducted at the same time, installation process of the lower turntable is

Detailed design process of spherical hinge

As key component of the horizontal rotation construction, spherical hinge needs to resist the concentrate load from superstructure to ensure the successful operation of the rotation system. With the development of the economy and transportation, there’s a lifting requirement on the swivel tonnage. The completion of some typical swivel bridges with large tonnage since the 21st century marks the beginning of million tonnage era of the superstructure rotation method (as shown in Fig. 1). Great

Engineering experience summary

Swivel construction of the overpass of Shanghai-Hangzhou high-speed railway has been achieved smoothly in 2010. Completion of this project implies that the world’s largest high-speed railway swivel arch bridge which has the heaviest rotation tonnage (16,800 t) among similar bridges has been successfully achieved, and rotation construction method is used to build a large-span high-speed arch bridge in soft soil foundation for the first time as well. Meanwhile, many key construction technologies

Conclusions

This study clearly points out the key technology issues of swivel arch bridges combined with the engineering application of the Shanghai-Hangzhou high-speed railway swivel arch bridge, through the case some conclusions can be obtained as follows:

  • 1)

    An increasingly wide utilization of rotation constructed bridges is found with an increasing swivel tonnage. The world’s largest high-speed railway arch bridge with the heaviest swivel tonnage (16,800 t) in soil foundation district, namely the swivel

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51678140, No. 51908122) and the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PAPD, Grant No. CE02-1-10). This study was also supported by, “Zhishan” Scholars Programs of Southeast University, the Technology R&D Project of China Communications Construction Company (2018-ZJKJ-02) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities. The financial supports are

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