Sunday, February 19, 2012 science & technology

12

Two Ways to Build a Bridge

Self-anchored suspension bridges, like the new Bay Bridge, are costlier to build than conventional suspension bridges because the road deck must be supported until the main cable is installed.
SELF-ANCHORED SUSPENSION BRIDGE CONVENTIONAL SUSPENSION BRIDGE

WHATS THE DIFFERENCE?

Towers are built and large anchorages of concrete or bedrock are prepared.

Main cables are strung over the towers from anchorage to anchorage.

The road deck is suspended from the cables using smaller cables.

In a conventional design, the weight of the deck puts the main cables in tension, pulling on the anchorages.

The bridges single tower is built, as are piers to support the two ends of the span.

A temporary bridge, called falsework, is erected.

The road deck is installed on top of the falsework.

4 The

cable is strung and the deck is attached by smaller cables. The falsework is removed.

In a self-anchored bridge, tension in the main cable is resisted by the deck, which gets compressed.
MIKA GRNDAHL/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Source: T.Y. Lin International

Designed to Withstand a Major Quakes Shake

By HENRY FOUNTAIN

SAN FRANCISCO The engineers of the new San FranciscoOakland Bay Bridge have planned for the long term. At intervals inside the $6 billion spans box girders are anchor blocks, called deadmen. They are meant to be used perhaps in the next century, when the concrete girders start to sag. By running cables from deadman to deadman and tightening them, workers will be able to restore the girders to their original alignment. The deadmen are one sign that the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge is meant to last at least 150 years after its expected opening in 2013. (The existing eastern bridge will then be torn down.) At some point, the new span may have to survive a major earthquake, like the one that destroyed much of San Francisco in 1906 or the one that partly severed the Bay Bridge in 1989. Keeping the bridge intact in an earthquake is the engineers chief goal. So they are designing flexible structures in which any potential damage would be limited to specific elements. The flexibility of the system is such that it basically rides the earthquake, said its lead designer, Marwan Nader, a vice president at the engineering firm T. Y. Lin International. Another potential approach, making the bridge structures large enough, and rigid enough, to resist movement, was rejected. The new design includes a 160-meter-tall suspension bridge tower made up of four steel shafts that should sway in a major quake, up to about 1.5 meters at the top. But the brunt of the force would be absorbed by connecting plates between the shafts, called shear links. The bridges concrete piers are
online: A sPAn BUilt to lAst

mika grndahl/the new york times

the twin spans of the new san Francisco-oakland Bay Bridge, a suspension bridge meant to last 150 years. the old span is at left.
designed to sway as well, limiting damage to areas with extra steel reinforcing. And at joints along the entire span there are 18-meter sliding steel tubes, called hinge pipe beams, with sacrificial sections of weaker steel that should help spare the rest of the structure as it moves in a quake. At the seismic displacement that we anticipate, there will be damage, Mr. Nader said. But the damage is repairable and the bridge can be serviceable. It was the Loma Prieta quake of 1989 that made this 3.5-kilometer replacement span necessary. The 6.9-magnitude quake caused part of the existing span to collapse, killing a motorist and closing the bridge for a month. That quake caused movement far greater than the 1930svintage bridge had been designed to handle. Most experts believe a

A bridges span is meant to sway when the earth moves.

stronger quake could cause a total collapse of the span. There is a strong likelihood of another earthquake in the Bay Area of magnitude 6.7 or larger before 2036, according to the United States Geological Survey. Unlike more conventional suspension bridges, in which parallel cables are slung over towers and anchored at both ends in rock or concrete, the 624-meter suspension bridge has only a single tower and a single cable that is anchored to the road deck itself, looping from end to end and back. (With a conventional design

An interactive graphic about the bridge project, with animation: nytimes.com Search bridge

it would have been extremely difficult to create an anchorage on the bridges eastern end, in the middle of the bay.) The new bridge is the longest selfanchored suspension bridge in the world, with one side of the span longer than the other. In a self-anchored design, the road deck has to be built first. You have a kind of chicken-and-egg situation, Mr. Nader said. You need the deck to carry the compression so that the cable anchors into it, but the deck cant carry itself until the cable is there to carry it. So you have to build a temporary system, which needs to be seismically secure as well. The single tower created design problems. Its just like a pole, he said. If you have a pole and the pole starts shaking, all the damage will occur at the bottom.

The solution was to split the tower into four shafts and tie them together with the shear links. The links are of a special grade of steel that deforms more easily. Their placement at points along the length of the tower affects how the shafts will move in a quake. Mr. Nader said the shear links about two-thirds of the way up would be most damaged in a major earthquake. But the tower would still be structurally sound, he said, and the links would not have to be replaced immediately. Its like a fender bender, he said. Your car is perfectly drivable, and its designed that way, with a bumper that can take the shock. So you basically stop, just to make sure, he went on. You see everythings O.K., and you can come in anytime you want to repair your bumper.