Monday, November 16, 2009

Mexico's Bridges: Overcrossing near Tonila

Continuing north on Route 54D toward Guadalajara, the road goes through a series of cuts in the mountains. Driving through one of these cuts, I got my first glimpse of a kind of bridge I've never seen before.

Under the deck of a reinforced concrete single span overcrossing (a bridge over the highway) is what I would call a structural steel space truss. It's made up of eight-legged elements connecting the concrete slab to longitudinal and transverse steel elements. Apparently, these thin elements are strong enough to increase the bending resistance of this structure.

This type of structure is apparently very popular in Colima. There is a water main supported by a similar structure 140 ft away, and single span and two span bridge undercrossings (a bridge carrying the highway) a few miles to the north.
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Mexico's Bridges: Overcrossing near Tonila by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

1 comment:

alejandro said...

NORRIN : MORE THAN ONE CONCRETE BRIDGE HAS FAILED AND YOU DONT SAY THAT THEY ARE "BADLY DESIGNED STRUCTURES", PRECAST BEAMS THE SAME.

I HAVE SEEN AT MEXICO PRE STRESS BEAM BRIDGES THAT THEY COLLAPSE BEFORE OPENED TO TRAFFIC.

I HAVE SEEN BRIDGES WITH MORE THAN 25 YEARS, AND THEY HAVENT RECEIVE MAINTENANCE (NOT RE-PAINT, NOT SUPPORT CLEANING, NOT NOTHING) AND THEY ARE OK.

AT MEXICO THE PROBLEM ARENT THE BRIDGES. THE PROBLEM IS THAT WE THINK THAT THE BRIDGES DONT NEED MAINTENANCE AND WE NEVER GIVE MAINTENANCE TO THE BRIDGES. "POLITICAL MEXICAN THINGS"

my mail is alcalan@hotmail.com