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DOI: 10.1002/stco.201210030

The Design of Langqi Min River Bridge, Fuzhou, China

Min Zhang Tianbo Wan Yingliang Wang

One key project in the Chinese city of Fuzhou is Langqi Min River Bridge, which connects the business and technology district with downtown Fuzhou. The main bridge is a twin-pylon cable-stayed structure with a main span of 680m and a steel box girder. This paper presents the detailed design features of the bridge, including foundations, anti-ship collision devices, pylons, steel box girder and stay cables.

6. design wind speed: average max. 10-min wind speed 39.1m/s, 10m above sea level, 100-year-return period 7. according to the site earthquake safety assessment report completed by Fujian Province Seismic Dept, the peak horizontal ground acceleration is 138Gal with a 4% exceedance probability in 100 years, associated recurrence interval T=T0/ln(1P)=100/ln(10.04)= 2449 years. In accordance with the requirements of the client, the preliminary and detailed design of the permanent works and the entire bridge were carried out according to Chinas design code for highway bridges. The EU code with German annexes [1] to [5] and technical literature were adopted for specic design issues not covered by the main standards. The entire bridge was designed using the ultimate and serviceability limit states approach.

1Introduction
Langqi Ming River Bridge is located in the east of Fuzhou, China. It spans the River Min estuary to connect the business and technology district with downtown Fuzhou. The key design criteria adopted for the bridge include: 1. highway class: 6-lane high-speed city road 2. bridge width: 28.7m (including cable anchorage zone width) 3. design speed: 60km/h 4. imposed load standard: Chinese highway class I 5. navigation clearance: width and height of navigational channel should not be less than 630m and 55.1m respectively, maximum water level for navigation 6.778m

2 Design of main bridge 2.1 General design

The general layout of the main bridge is 60 + 90 + 150 + 680 + 150 + 90 + 60 m with a total length of 1280 m, as shown in Fig.1 and the photomontage of Fig.2. The main

Fig.1. General layout of main bridge (unit: m)

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girder uses a streamlined steel box girder. The plane alignment of the main bridge is straight, double longitudinal slope are 2.85%, the radius of the vertical curve is 12000m. Auxiliary piers are adopted to enhance global rigidity and to improve the structural behaviour of main girder and pylon. Piers0 to 2 are located on the bank, the others in water of dierent depths. The depth of water at piers (pylons) 3 to 7 is about 4.6, 8.3, 8.3, 9.4 and 9.0m respectively. Two expansion joints with longitudinal movements of 440mm are included at piers 0 and 7. Fig.3 shows the global restraint system of the bridge. Vertical bearings are adopted at every pylon and pier. Transverse wind bearings are included at side piers 0 and 7 and pylons 3 and 4. Longitudinal dampers are used at pylons 3 and 4 only, which restrain the longitudinal imposed load displacement and dissipate the earthquake energy. The maximum damping force and buer stroke are 300kN and 680mm respectively. The exponent is 0.1, the damper coecient 3400.The ratio of side span to centre span is 0.44. In order to avoid uplift in the side span, counterweights have been adopted in both side spans; the intensity and distribution of the counterweight on the Langqi side are shown in Fig.4. The intensity and distribution of the counterweight on the Tingjiang side are symmetrical.

Fig.2. Photomontage of main bridge

Fig.3. General layout of global restraint system

Fig.4. Intensity and distribution of counterweight on Langqi side (unit: m)

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2.2 Substructure and pylons
In accordance with the geological conditions, the bridge is founded on large-diameter bored cast-in-place piles. The foundation to each pylon includes 32 end-bearing bored piles 2.8 m in diameter. The piles at pylons 3 and 4 are about 6080m and 80100m long respectively. The steel casings were embedded in the pile cap and integrated with it, which is favourable for seismic events. The pile cap of pylon 4 was constructed using a suspended coerdam with a bottom shutter. Tremie concrete was cast on site to provide a watertight seal around the piles. Afterwards, the coerdam was dewatered and the pile cap constructed in two lifts. Water-cooling tubes were embedded in the concrete during each pour to control the concrete temperature. The concrete for the pile was required to have an underwater cubic compressive strength of 35MPa. The rectangular pile cap is made of C35 concrete and is 30.0m long, 48.0m wide and 6.0m deep. A pedestal has been used on the pile cap for the transition from pylon to foundation. The concrete for pylons was required to have a cubic compressive strength of 50MPa, and for auxiliary piers and side piers was required to have a cubic compressive strength of 40MPa. Pylon 4 is located in deep water and so protective works were adopted. Such protective works are designed to eliminate or reduce the impact forces to non-destructive levels by either redirecting the vessel or by dissipating and absorbing the vessel energy. The fender system is independent of the piers and, in addition, serves for vessel guidance purposes. The oating anti-ship collision device consists of a 4.0m diameter composite material tube and the concrete wall. The tube oats on the water, rising and falling automatically with the water level, and absorbs the energy of a ship. The pile caps are surrounded by the tube, and the pedestal surrounded by the concrete wall, as shown in Fig.5. Longitudinally, the pylon is designed as a slender reinforced concrete stayed strut and transversely as a diamond frame. Fig. 6 shows the conguration and cross-section of pylon 3. The diamond shape enhances the contribution of the cable-stay system to the overall torsional stiness of the deck, and is also a good conguration for the landscape. The bottom of the pylon is inclined inwards, which reduces the plan dimensions of the pylon foundation. The pylon is 223.0 m high, made up of 162.345 m above the deck and

Fig.6. General layout of pylon 3 (unit: cm)

60.655 m below. The pylon shafts are connected by three prestressed concrete cross-beams and form a transverse framework. Where the vertical rebar diameter is > 20mm, threaded couplers are adopted for the site rebar splices. Personnel access to all levels in the pylon head is provided by access ladders and rest platforms inside each pylon shaft.

Fig.5. Anti-ship collision device at pylon 4

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and 30.12m wide, which includes the windshield and cable anchorage zone. The double cross-fall is 2%. The length of the segments for the steel box girder is dictated by the capacity of the oating crane, the derrick as well as the construction method and duration. The steel box girder is divided into 16 types and 97 segments. The standard segment is 15m long and weighs 250t. The side span segments are 9m long. Double inner webs divide the box into three cells. The longitudinal ange stieners are closed trapezoidal stieners. L-type longitudinal stieners are used for the inner and outer webs. The standard thickness of the top and bottom anges is 16 and 12 mm respectively. The top ange near the cable anchorage gusset plate is reinforced to 16mm. The height, centre-to-centre distance and thickness of the top ange longitudinal stieners are 280, 600 and 8 mm respectively. The height, centre-to-centre distance and thickness of the bottom ange longitudinal stiener are 210, 720 and 6mm respectively. The spacing of the two inner webs is 11.96m. The spacing of the cross-beams is 3.0m, the web thickness is 12mm; at cable anchorages and bearings the thickness are 14 and 22mm respectively. The cross-beam is divided into three segments in the transverse direction. The global vertical curve of alignment was realized by the dierent lengths of the top and bottom anges of the steel box girder. The length of the main girder will shorten under axial loading due to dead loads; the amount of compression will be compensated for by the extra length in the fabrication. The steel orthotropic deck system was analysed using the Pelikan-Esslinger method. The site splices of the steel box girder are welded, except the inner and outer webs and longitudinal top ange stieners, which are connected by 24mm dia. high-strength friction-grip bolts. The total weight of the steel box girder is 20 200t (=550kg/m2). Grade Q345qD has been adopted for the steel box girder, which is required to have a yield strength of 345MPa and 41J impact test energy at a temperature of 20C. According to the segmental and global model wind tunnel test results, the gantry tracks were located on the deck. The critical utter wind speed of the double-cantilever construction stage and the completed stage are 95.75 and 81.72m/s respectively; both meet the requirements for utter stability of the main girder.

Fig.7. #-type anchorage plane (unit: cm)

The cable stays are anchored inside the hollow pylon head. As well as the high local forces, similar to those occurring at post-tensioning anchorages, the horizontal component of the stay forces has to be transmitted across the pylon between the fore- and back-stays. This generates very high local bending moments and tensile axial loads which have to be carried by longitudinal and transverse highstrength prestressed ribbed reinforcement with a minimum breaking strength of 1000MPa and a diameter of 32mm, plus reinforcement in the pylon walls. Prestressed ribbed reinforcement is arranged with a # shape, see Fig.7. The bursting force of stay cables are balanced by reinforcement located in the anchorage block. A three-dimensional local nite element model was used for analysing the cable anchorage area of the pylon shaft, with pylon shaft and anchorage block being simulated by brick elements.

2.3 Main girder

The main girder is a streamlined steel box girder with three cells, as shown in Fig.8. The steel box girder is 3.5m high

Half cross-section at anchorage

Half cross-section at standard location

Fig.8. Cross-section through standard segment steel box girder (unit: mm)

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2.4 Anchorage device between cable and main girder
There is an anchorage device between cable socket and longitudinal plate girder. It includes a gusset plate, four stieners, an anchorage pipe and a bearing plate, see Fig.9 and Fig.10. The gusset plate is divided into upper, middle and lower parts. Two sides of the upper gusset plate are welded to the outside wall of the anchorage pipe so the stay cable force is transferred to the upper gusset plate directly. In order to install the anchorage socket for a stay cable, the middle part was cut. On the two sides of the middle gusset plate, four open stieners are welded on both sides of the gusset plate in order to compensate for the loss of area due to the cut out and to improve the transverse rigidity. The lower part of the gusset plate is connected to the top face of the top ange plate girder by a full penetration cruciform weld. The anchorage device is as simple idea. The whole anchorage system is located above the bridge deck, which makes maintenance work relatively convenient. However, as cruciform welds have been adopted, the stress is easy to concentrate. Fatigue was checked using EN199319 and EN19932, especially for the full penetration weld between gusset plate and top ange of main girder. In order to avoid lamellar tearing in the top ange, the through-thickness property of the plate was determined according to EN1993110. For example, the gusset plate thickness is 36mm, the mm, the thickness of reineective weld depth ae = 16 forced top ange plate is 20mm, see Fig.10. According to EN1993110: 1. eective weld depth ae=16mm, so Za=6 2. cruciform connections with full penetration welds, so Zb=3 3. under static loading, there is a tensile stress through the thickness of the plate, so Zc=6 4. cruciform connections with moderate shrinkage restraint, so Zd=5 5. no preheating, so Ze=0 Zed= Za + Zb + Zc + Zd + Ze = 6 + 3 + 6 + 5 = 20 According to the above calculation, Z25 is enough for the through-thickness properties of the top ange, but for safety, Z35 steel has been adopted. The longitudinal girder between the adjacent crossbeam supports the counterweight steel sand, which is connected to the cross-beam with high-strength friction-grip bolts and subjected to the weight of the counterweight steel sand.

2.5 Stay cables

The stay cable system uses prefabricated bundles of parallel steel wires with a minimum tensile strength of 1670MPa. The vertical spacing of adjacent cables on the pylon is 2.0m. There are nine types of stay cable: 81, 109, 127, 139, 151, 163, 187, 199 and 211 steel wires with a diameter of 7mm. Each cable is completely protected by an exterior protective

Fig.9. Schematic drawing of typical gusset anchorage device

Fig.10. Typical gusset anchorage system (unit: mm)

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Fig.11. The pylons under construction

duct; the surface of the protective duct has spiral curves in order to mitigate vibration caused by rain and wind. Total weight of stay cables is 944.6t. The stay cables were jacked at the time of installation to about 3035% of their breaking force. The cable stays were designed for the serviceability and ultimate limit states using partial material safety factors of 2.50 and 1.90 respectively. The calculated stress range due to imposed loads is < 15MPa. Any of the cables can be replaced under trac. Only one cable can be destressed concurrently for maintenance work.

structed beneath the bridge on the land. The girder segments will be transported by water and slid under their nal location for installation by derrick formwork. The middle span and Langqi side span steel girders will be transported to their appropriate locations and then installed by derrick formwork. Construction of the bridge started in April2012. The two pylons are now under construction, see Fig. 11. Deck closure stitches for the main bridge are anticipated for May 2013. The total project should open to trac in July 2014.
References
[1] DIN-Fachbericht 103. Stahlbrcken. Beuth Verlag, Berlin, 2003. [2] EN 199319: Design of steel structures. Part19:Fatigue. CEN, Brussels, 2005. [3] EN 19932: Design of steel structures. Part2: Steel bridges. CEN, Brussels, 2005. [4] EN 1993111: Design of steel structures. Part111: Design of structures with tension components. CEN, Brussels, 2006. [5] Sedlacek, G., Eisel, H.: Leitfaden zum DIN-Fachbericht 103.Stahlbrcken (Mrz 2003). Ernst& Sohn, Berlin. Keywords: cable-stayed bridge; steel box girder; gusset plate anchorage, lamellar tearing

3Construction
The pylon on the Tingjiang side is located in the shallow water zone and very near to the riverbank, so the foundation was constructed with a corrugated steel sheet coerdam. The pylon foundation on the Langqi side was constructed in a twin-wall steel coerdam. Concrete was supplied from both river banks. Two batch plants have been set up on both sides. The distance between the Langqi side pylon and the riverbank is > 400 m, the water depth is approx. 3 m. In order to provide easy and safe access to the riverbank for materials, manpower and machinery, a temporary steel trestle bridge has been built from the Langqi side pylon to the bank (Fig.11). A piled working platform was set up at each river pier for installing the piles. The pylons are being constructed using hydraulic self-climbing formwork; the standard segment length is 6m and the standard cycle is achieved in 7 days. Double-cantilever construction of the main girder will be used for the main bridge. As the main girder of the Tingjiang side span is located on the bank, a temporary dock has been set up on the bank and a temporary slipway con-

Authors:
Dr.-Ing. Min Zhang, post-doctoral Candidate, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing, China Ing. Tianbao Wan, Deputy Chief Engineer, China Railway Major Bridge Reconnaissance& Design Institute Co. Ltd, Wuhan, China Dr.-Ing. Yingliang Wang, Deputy Chief Engineer, China Railway Major Bridge Reconnaissance& Design Institute Co. Ltd, Wuhan, China

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