Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Hewlett,
T. Woodman & J. Yarrien
(Imgkid, n.d.)
This paper provides an analysis of the Alamillo Bridge and discusses the feasibility of future alterations. By considering the
existing structure and the predicted population for Seville the proposal for widening the bridge was deemed appropriate. It
was concluded that this would consist of an additional lane added to both sides of the box girder with a back stay cable to the
rear of the pylon. This report contains preliminary analysis for the new bridge structure.
Calculations are available upon request.
3. Order
Seville is the capital of Andalusia, one of the fifteen regions of Spain. As the fourth largest city in the country it
forms a major centre of economic growth; it provides a
quarter of the GDP of the autonomous region.
4. Refinement
5. Integration into the environment
6. Surface Texture
7. Colour
After the Guadalquivir flooded several times the government decided to reroute the river. What was the Guadalquivir is now known as Meandro de San Jeronimo, and a
new island, La Cartuja, was created.
8. Character
9. Complexity
10. Incorporation of Nature
In 1992 the Universal Exposition was held in Seville, requiring the local government to increase infrastructure
investment within the city. This resulted in the design
and construction of Puente del Alamillo, spanning across
the Meandro de San Jeronimo to the island of La Cartuja.
The aesthetics of the Alamillo Bridge have been extensively covered in the past by numerous parties. As a result they will only be discussed briefly in this report.
The ten rules governing the aesthetics of a bridge, as laid
out by Fritz Leonhardt, are:
1. Fulfilment of purpose/Function
2. Proportion
There are only a few ways of making a bridge. Like this [he rapidly draws the bridge with cable stays counteracting the
forces on both sides] or you can take these cable stays away [he draws it again without the cables on one side.] The absence of that one thing that is what makes it tremendous.
Calatrava, on the design of the Alamillo Bridge
(Heathcote, 2012)
Functionally the Alamillo Bridge is a failure; it is inefficient and structurally dishonest. To the untrained eye the
bridge appears to be balancing, with the weight of the
inclined pylon supporting the bridge which in turn prevents the pylon from overturning. In reality there is
a large pile group which resists overturning, the bridge
itself functions as a box girder and the cables take a surprisingly low proportion of the load compared to a traditional cable stayed bridge.
crease its stiffness and load capacity. Existing calculations show that the box girder does up to 60% of the
work and is observed to deflect significantly.
(Bristol.ac.uk, 2015)
There are 13 pairs of cables, 1 pair formed from 45
strands and the rest of 60 strands. They pairs are offset
by 5 m and run from the box girder to the pylon. The cables have been quoted as only supporting the dead load
of the bridge (Orr, 2008) but this is seen to be inaccurate
as under resonance checks they carry a much higher
force. (Casas, 1994)
The pylon is a mix of steel and concrete, weighing approximately 185 MN (Pollalis, 1999)and due the inclination it subjects the foundations to a significant moment.
Beneath the pylon the west foundation is a pile group
consisting of 54 piles, which are 2m in diameter. The surrounding soil is predominantly marl, a mudstone containing layers of clays and silts, with an undrained shear
strength taken to be 275 kPa. (Orr, 2008)
Graffiti is prevalent on the bridge but there does not appear to be any structural vandalism present. An antispray paint coating should be added to the tower to prevent future tagging and degradation of the visual aesthetic.
The further analysis focuses on the single backspan option with both the vertical and angled orientations of the
cable considered. Removing the entire moment experienced by the system is unnecessary and uneconomical
since the pylon is already designed to resist large
amounts of bending. The angle of the cable is dictated
primarily by the road layout. An angle of 90 degrees to
the pylon optimally reduces the compression but would
require an undesirable restructure of the roads to the
west to accommodate a new anchor block. Otherwise the
solution has minimal negative impact to the bridge both
structurally and aesthetically.
(Skyscanner, n.d.)
Seville experiences highly variable temperatures, between 46.6C and -5.5C. This has the potential to cause
156 mm of expansion to the deck at the eastern end, assuming a constant temperature throughout the box girder. There is a movement joint so the deck can be considered unrestrained. Should the deck be restrained, previous calculations indicate the box girder undergoes a
stress of 53N/mm2. (J Orr, 2008).
At this stage of design, these load cases have not been
accounted for as they are relatively minor compared to
the primary loading for this bridge. They have been noted for more detailed analysis.
The orange line corresponds to the fins moment capacity and the blue corresponds to the applied moment.
There will be adequate moment capacity for the load
case shown above; this remains true for all load cases.
The struts of the push pull connection, which transfer
moment from the fins to the box girder, have been
checked and deemed acceptable with respect to tension
and compression. The force in the compressive strut has
been calculated as 5.7 MN and will be required for a box
girder buckling check.
The resultant torsion is calculated as 92.9 MNm, an increase of 40% over the original 6 lane case. This induces
an acceptable shear stress of 46.5 N/mm2.
The capacity of a cable has been calculated on the premise that the individual strands were 15.2mm in diameter
as given by multiple sources. This value, paired with the
allowable stress, gives an overall capacity for the cable;
Instead the ultimate capacity is taken as the bearing capacity of a soil block beneath the pile group.
(Barnes, 2010)
By considering the combined behaviour of the pile group
the ultimate bearing capacity is given as 2233 MN, an
increase of 50%.
A supporting cradle has been proposed with the intention of closing the bridge at nights. For this method, temporary barriers would be erected and the current concrete barriers broken down at the end of each fin. A cradle will then be hung from the underbelly of the deck and
supported by the current deck and fins. This will also
contain hoists and jacks to retrieve the metal fins from a
barge below. As seen beneath.
From the analysis, it is feasible to alter the bridge to allow for a greater movement of traffic due to future
growth of the area. This report gives the following recommendations: