Sunday, August 21, 2011

New Zealand's Bridges: Chaney's Overpass in Christchurch (3)

March 2011 (-43.430 Degrees, 172.646 Degrees) Chaney's Overpass

One last photo of Chaney's Overpass. Its odd that the precast girders extend beyond the sides of the pier wall. However, the bridge deck is haunched downward to sit on the pier wall, so its actually a solid cap sitting on the wall. 

It seems like it would have been easier to have set the ends of the girder segments on the wall, but maybe it's easier to design it with the ends near the inflection points of the spans. The wall looks kind of thin to be supporting this big superstructure. Even though it is well-seated at the abutments we could see cracks in the soil where the pier foundation had moved back and forth during the earthquake.
Creative Commons License
New Zealand's Bridges: Chaney's Overpass in Christchurch (3) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

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