Shanghai's Bridges: Zhejiang Road Bridge (3)

Yet another view of the Zhejiang Road Bridge. The lenticular truss is supported on four stocky built-up members at the four corners of the bridge.

The bridge was put together with rivets, which has become something of a lost art. I read that when the City of Shanghai was rebuilding the Waibaidu Bridge (at the mouth of Suzhou Creek), they were able to find hundreds of older workers that were still expert riveters. Perhaps they also worked on rebuilding Zhejiang Road Bridge in the 1970s.

It appears that the vertical hangers attached to the top chord at the ends of the span are able to slide through the bottom chord and support the floor beams under the deck. The weight of the deck compresses the top chord which pushes the ends of the bottom chord farther apart which lifts up the deck in the middle of the span. However, this type of structure is rather flexible and causes large displacements when a heavy vehicle drives across the bridge. Perhaps that's why there is a 15 ton vehicle weight restriction on this bridge.

Shanghai's Bridges: Zhejiang Road Bridge (3) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Shanghai's Bridges: Zhejiang Road Bridge (2)

Another view of the Zhejiang Road Bridge in Shanghai. In yesterday's photo, we saw the bridge was about 60 m long between the quay walls along Suzhou Creek. Although the bridge has very low vertical clearance, it doesn't appear to have been damaged from collisions with ships or from flood debris.

They were working along the quaywall when I visited in October. It looked like they had broken up a concrete wall (or the pavement?). It also looks like they were mixing portland concrete by hand. I wonder if construction is still done largely by hand in China?

Shanghai's Bridges: Zhejiang Road Bridge (2) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Shanghai's Bridges: Zhejiang Road Bridge

We previously looked at a lenticular truss bridge in Pittsburgh (Gustav Linderthal's 1883 Smithfield Street Bridge). This type of bridge became popular at the end of the 19th century. The top chord is like an arch that carries the deck in compression. The bottom chord is like a suspension cable that caries the deck in tension.

The Zhejiang Road Bridge was completed in 1908 and strengthened in 1975. It's a single span lenticular truss bridge across Suzhou Creek. It's only 15 meters wide and includes wide sidewalks and two narrow vehicular lanes.

This bridge, like the Zhapu Road Bridge, was featured in street scenes of Shanghai in the movie Empire of the Sun. That film did a nice job of showing the life of privilege of the colonialist families and the deprivation of the Chinese people prior to the Second Sino-Japanese War.

This photo provides a good view of Suzhou Creek. For many years the creek was highly polluted. The City of Shanghai looks at the creek as an important resource and has worked hard to clean it up. Today there are several species of fish, turtles, and other riparian creatures and the creek is no longer black and smelly.

Shanghai's Bridges: Zhejiang Road Bridge by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.