Design and construction techniques of Daning River Bridge

Shuixing Zhou
School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Chongqing Jiaotong University, Chongqing, China
Xiaoping Du, Dan Li and Yongsheng Duan
Chongqing Highway Group Corporation, Yudong Construction Branch, Chongqing, China

ABSTRACT: Daning River Bridge has a 400meter span and is the longest arch bridge having
steel truss deck in China. The main arch comprises of three arch trusses connected by bracings
and the spandrel is a steel-concrete composite structure. The trusses were installed by means of
non-framework cable hoisting. In order to ensure accurate fabrication of all arch truss segments
and components, an iteration method of segmental elevations was proposed based on the cable
one-time tensioning technique. In practice, all truss segments and components have been
fabricated precisely by using this method. This paper focuses on the design and construction
control technology and the stability of the tall columns in Daning River Bridge.

1 INTRODUCTION

The Daning River Bridge locates at the expressway between Wushan and Fengjie of Chongqing
city. The entire bridge is 681 meters long and its main structure is a steel truss deck catenary
arch bridge having a clear span of 400 meters (Fig.1). The arch axis is a centenary with a
coefficient of 1.9 and the ratio of rise to span f 0 L0 is 1/5.
奉节
宜昌 Yichang 全桥长68100 Yi h Fengjie
yichang 500 5*3000 16*2700 3*3000 400
el+dl
Q Ⅰ2-2

305.689
9 弱风化灰岩
Ⅰ2-2 294.362
含砾石粘土 150 290.759 288.843
Ⅶ-3
Ⅶ-2 150 Ⅰ
1-2 277.439 180
274.362
强风化溶崩角砾灰岩
0 弱风化灰岩
260.759 180 261.388 261.343
Ⅶ-3 1 Ⅶ-2 8
248.939
弱风化溶崩角砾灰岩 180 244.375 180
2
234.856
232.388
180 219.944 7 Ⅶ-3
3
弱风化溶崩角砾灰岩 219.944
Ⅶ-3 213.875
Ⅶ-3 4
201.944
40000 201.944 弱风化灰岩
25°∠23° 5 6000 6
1000

320 320 340°∠28°

176.944
弱风化溶崩角砾灰岩
175.10 176.944
Ⅶ-3
弱风化灰岩
Ⅶ-3
Ⅶ-3

el+dl
Q Ⅰ1-2

Ⅶ-3 弱风化灰岩

Ⅶ-3
Ⅶ-3
Ⅶ-3

Figure 1 : Elevation of Daning River Bridge (unit:cm)

Figure 2 : The cross section of Daning River Bridge

Shuixing Zhou, Xiaoping Du, Dan Li, etc. 189

The approaches consist of 5×30m and 3×30m T-beams and the pavement width is 24.5m, as
shown in Figs.1 and 2. It should be mentioned that Daning River Bridge is the first
steel-truss-deck arch bridge having triple ribs and super long span in China. This span length is
less than that of the New River Gorge Bridge in the United States whose main span is 518.3
meters long, whereas the latter bridge is a double-rib-deck steel truss arch bridge.

2 CONFIGURATION OF THE MAIN ARCH AND THE SPANDREL STRUCTURE

2.1 Structure of the main arch
The main arch consists of three arch trusses in the transverse direction and the truss height of
the main arch is identical to the distances between two trusses. The central height from the
upper to the bottom chords is 10 meters, as is the truss central distance in the transverse
direction. The upper and bottom chords have steel box sections, which are 1.5 m high and 1.0 m
wide. There are also longitudinal stiffening webs arranged inside the chords. From the arch
crown to the springing, the thickness of the steel box varies from 30 mm to 48 mm. All chords
and bracings are connected by the integrated joints. Meanwhile, the thickness of the box webs
partially increases at the joints.
All other components including the web components in the trusses and the transverse
bracings are welded as the I sections. Table 1 gives their heights and thickness.

Table 1 : Dimensions of the web components and the transverse bracings of the chord
Wing thickness Web Thickness
Component Height /mm
/mm /mm
Web components 998 20 18
Bracings 688 16 12
Cross Web components
600 16 12
Between trusses

2.2 Columns
The columns are made of steel frames and each of them comprises three steel box columns. The
width of each steel box is 1.0 m（identical to that of the chord）in the transverse direction, while
the height is 1.7 m to1.9 m in the longitudinal direction. The wall thickness is 16 mm. There are
also longitudinal stiffening ribs and transverse diaphragms arranged inside the box. When the
column is higher than 18 m, double diagonal members welded by I-shape steel are used to
connect two columns. Similarly, the bent caps of the columns are also steel box structures.
There is a double-transverse slop of 2% at the cap top. The height at the highway center line is
1.75 m and the width is 1.2 m. The thickness of the top and bottom steel plates is 20 mm, while
that of the web is 16 mm. Similarly, the bent cap box also has longitudinal stiffening ribs.

2.3 Spandrel Structure

The spandrel structure is a continuous steel-concrete composite girder having each span of 27 m.
The composite girder welded with the I-shape steel beam is 1.7 m high. The thickness of the top
and bottom flanges is not identical. The folding steel plate is added to the flange plate at the
supporting point. Transverse stiffening ribs were placed in an interval of 2.25 m and transverse
steel beams were placed in an interval of 6.75 m. The prefabricated reinforced concrete plate
has the thickness of 12 cm. In order to eliminate the effects caused by the creep and shrinkage
of concrete, they must be prefabricated six months in advance. After hoisting the plates, 9-cm
CF50 steel fiber concrete will be cast in order to combine the plates and concrete joints into a
entire structure. The steel girders and the reinforced concrete plates were formed into a
composite girder using the shear connectors placed at the weld joints. To prevent the composite
structure from its invalidation due to the rainwater, double-waterproofing covers were placed
between the plate and the asphalt concrete. The first one is the DPS cements infiltration
waterproof coating and the other is the polymer waterproof coating.
190 ARCH’10 – 6th International Conference on Arch Bridges

To improve the stability of the columns, the steel stringers at two transition piers are installed
on the sliding bearings and the others are consolidated with the columns.

3 INSTALLATION OF TRUSS AND CONTROL TECHNOLOGY OF ARCH AXES

3.1 Installation methods and characters
The installation of the main arch of Daning River Bridge adopted the non-framework cable
hoisting method. The determination of the divided numbers is the hoisting weight. Each arch rib
from the springing to the arch crown had 9 segments and there are totally 54 segments for the
entire bridge. The weight of the largest segment (the first segment locates at the springing) is
162 tons. All transverse bracings are installed as single members. The equal elevations of three
segments locating at the same broken position must be satisfied in the installation process.
Otherwise, it may result in the difficulty in installing the bracings due to the level difference.
The cable tower and hoisting tower were assembled to the triple columns structure with
universal members. The cable tower is fixed at the top of bent cap of the transition pier, while
the hoisting tower is hinged with the cable tower. All the cables are fabricated using
pre-stressing steel wire strands and the tensioning ends are placed at the cable tower. The steel
wire strands at the arch position are anchored into the P-type extruded anchorage. The
anchoring boxes were embedded in the transition pier and the anchoring beams and boxes were
simultaneously fixed on the cable tower. When the truss segment was hoisted to the appointed
position, the cables were tensioned by the jacks. The installation of all the truss segments were
carried out using the one-time tensioning method. The inner flanges were temporarily connected
between two segments. After that, steel plates were welded to form the box sections of the
chord.
In order to enhance the stability of hoisting the arch segments, the temporary joints at the
springing were fixed after the 5th segment was erected.

3.2 Control Technology of Arch Axis Lines

Since the non-framework cable hoisting method has been successfully applied to Yongning
Yong River Bridge for the first time, research related to the control of arch axis lines for
double-ribs arch bridges had been continuously performed. Some calculation methods about
cable forces and segment camber have been proposed，e.g. the balanced force system method,
the zero bending moment method, the finite element method and the finite element method
based on the optimization theory(Chen Deliang et al. 2007; Tian Zhongchu et al. 2004; Zhang
Zhicheng et al. 2004; Zhou Shuixing 2002; Zhou Shuixing et al. 2000). However, Daning River
Bridge is a triple-ribbed arch bridge in which case all the segments were hoisted one by one.
When segmental elevation reached the right position, the flange bolt would be immediately
fastened. Because all the upper and bottom chord members of each segment used flange
connections, the junctions are almost close to being fixed. Therefore, the cable tensions of next
segments would affect the elevation of installed ones. In order to ensure the same position of the
3 segmental elevations after being installed, we propose to adopt the deformations of the main
arch due to its own weight as the control objectives. Based on the zero-order optimization
method provided by ANSYS®, we first calculated the cable forces and the cambers when the 3
segments were integrally installed at the same position. Then the integral optimized results was
adopted as the new objective and the cable forces and the cambers of every segment were
calculated again using the forward-iteration method. These results are adopted for the
construction control. The flowchart of this process was shown in Fig.3.
In the process of the construction control analysis, we found that if the first two truss
segments and the transverse bracings were synchronously installed, it is difficult to achieve the
same segmental position after the 3rd segment was installed. Furthermore, constructing the truss
segments and the bracings simultaneously increased the installation time. On the premise of
ensuring the construction safety, we suggested that the three truss segments were installed first
and then the bracings was installed. This method has been proved to be feasible based on the
fact that the measured deformations agreed well with the theoretical predictions at the half arch
Shuixing Zhou, Xiaoping Du, Dan Li, etc. 191

on the Fengjie site when the main arch reached its closure. Meanwhile, the maximum lateral
deviation is only 5 mm, as shown in Table 2.

Building Geometry Model

Calculating deformation 0 caused by self-weight for main arch

Calculating cable forces and segment cambers 1 while integral installation

0 1

Calculating cable forces and segment cambers 2 while individual installation

N
1 2

Y
N
Whether the displacement of cable tower are allowed
Y
Output cable forces and cambers

Figure 3 : Flowchart of calculating the cable forces and cambers

4 STABILITY ANALYSIS OF THE TALL COLUMNS

The elastic stability coefficients and the buckling modes for Daning River Bridge were showed
in Table 3.

Table 3 : Tall column stability coefficients and buckling modes of Daning River Bridge
stability
No. Buckling Mode
Coefficient
1 13.648 In-plane buckling of the first column at the Fengjie side
2 14.353 In-plane buckling of transition pier at the Fengjie side
3 16.297 In-plane buckling of the first column at the Yichang side
4 17.98 In-plane buckling of Transition pier at the Yichang side
5 23.543 First-order dissymmetry in-plane buckling of the main arch
6 24.587 Out-of-plane symmetry buckling of the main arch
7 25.11 Torsional buckling of the first column at the Fengjie side
8 28.484 In-plane buckling of the second column at the Fengjie side
9 29.074 Torsional buckling of the first column at the Yichang side
10 32.563 In-plane symmetry buckling of the main arch

It can be seen that there are 7 buckling modes just right for the tall columns. The tall columns
stability plays a control role in the construction of deck arch bridges having super long spans.
Hence, how to raise the stability of tall columns is a key issue for such arch bridges.

5 CONCLUSION

This paper describes the design and construction control of the main arch, the columns and the
spandrel structure in Daning River Bridge. According to the characteristics of the triple-ribbed
arch bridge, whose main arch was erected using the non-framework cable erection method and
all the bracings were dispersively installed, a forward iteration method for determining cable
forces and cambers is proposed. This method can meet the requirements of the cable one-time
tensioning method. The measured deformations of the arch status agreed well with the
theoretical predictions. And the lateral deviation is only 5 mm. For deck arch bridges having
192 ARCH’10 – 6th International Conference on Arch Bridges

long spans, their tall columns may control the structure stability. Therefore, this point has to be
paid attention by bridge designers.

Table 2 : Comparisons of theoretical and measured deformations at the Fengjie side

Section Measured Point Theoretical Predictions Measured Values Errors lateral deviations
cm cm cm cm
Upstream Side -0.88 -0.9 -0.02
First Middle -0.87 -1.0 -0.13 +0.1
Segment Downstream
-0.85 -0.9 -0.05
Side
Upstream Side -0.55 -0.8 -0.25
Second Middle -0.51 -1.0 -0.49 +0.1
Segment Downstream
-0.48 -1.1 -0.62
Side
Upstream Side 0.32 0.0 -0.32
Third Middle 0.4 -0.2 -0.6 0.0
Segment Downstream
0.52 -0.2 -0.72
Side
Upstream Side 1.07 0.4 -0.67
Forth Middle 1.13 0.0 -1.13 +0.2
Segment Downstream
1.29 0.2 -1.09
Side
Upstream Side 1.49 1.0 -0.49
Fifth Middle 1.51 0.7 -0.81 +0.2
Segment Downstream
1.62 1.1 -0.52
Side
Upstream Side 0.64 0.2 -0.44
Sixth Middle 0.53 0.1 -0.43 +0.3
Segment Downstream
0.44 0.0 -0.44
Side
Upstream Side -2.08 -2.2 -0.12
Seventh Middle -2.27 -3.0 -0.73 +0.2
Segment Downstream
-2.48 -3.0 -0.52
Side
Upstream Side -4.93 -6.3 -1.37
Eighth Middle -5.12 -6.5 -1.38 +0.4
Segment Downstream
-5.35 -6.0 -0.65
Side
Upstream Side -6.43 -9.3 -2.87
Ninth Middle -6.42 -8.5 -2.08 +0.5
Segment Downstream
-6.43 -9.0 -2.57
Side

6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research is supported by the Chongqing Communication Commission.

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