Posted on 12/26/2018 11:05:50 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Most newer concrete beams that hold up Utah highway bridges are around 145 feet long. But the Utah Department of Transportation is about to place six that are 40 percent longer — 203 feet — to help widen Interstate 15 in Lehi.
They are longer than the iconic Cinderella’s castle in Walt Disney World (189 feet) is high, or the leaning tower of Pisa (185 feet).
They also will be the third-longest single-component beams in the United States, slightly shorter than two in Orlando, Fla., and Seattle, said Lee Wegner, with Forterra Structural Precast, the West Valley City company that is making them.
They may also create a bit of a spectacle along Utah highways over the next few days. They are being shipped one at a time on long, wide trailers that take up two lanes of traffic — with Highway Patrol and pilot car escorts — and will mostly travel on freeways.
And crews will have “two massive cranes out there dropping pretty massive beams into place” in Lehi over a four-day process beginning probably on Thursday, said UDOT spokesman John Gleason.
The beams are being installed where I-15 crosses over some rail tracks and trails between the Lehi Main Street and 2100 North exits, and will help widen the freeway as part of the Technology Corridor project. Installation is not expected to interfere with or slow I-15 traffic, which is detoured around the work location.
“They are massive,” Wegner said about the beams. “They are roughly 225,000 pounds — a quarter-million pounds. They are just over 8 feet deep.”
He adds, “Up until probably the last five to 10 years, the technology did not exist to stretch them out to what we can do now.”
(Excerpt) Read more at sltrib.com ...
Full title:
Bridge beams made in West Valley City—more than 200 feet long—will help support I-15 widening in Lehi
Last 2 paragraphs in original article indicate S.O.S.D.D. in the work zone.
I fully support this.
And I hope they do as well....................
No I think the problem there was prestressed (and unqualified) engineers, from what little bit I’ve read of it.
Holy crap, how do you ship a 200’ beam?
“[The beams] are longer than the iconic Cinderella’s castle in Walt Disney World”
Is THAT the new standard of measure that everybody should know?
It used to be the Statue of Liberty or Washington’s Monument.
Sheesh...Cinderella’s castle at Wally World? Give me break. Is this written for 6 year old girls?
It’s the Trib, and they’re as liberal as you can imagine. Surprised they didn’t compare it to Obama’s... uh, yeah. Never mind.
Maybe site cast?? We do alot of “tilt-up” construction here. They cast a huge slab on the ground, let it cure, then stand it up for a wall. The beam could be done similarly at the site.
To whoever posted the pedestrian bridge collapse, I never did go find out if they determined poor design was the cause or shoddy materials and/or workmanship in construction, but typically Post tension concrete is pretty stable, I have drawn a few freeway bridges in earthquake prone California, that have performed well since.
Seems like I read afterwards that Cemex supplied the concrete and we had terrible 7 day break test results on their concrete here when I was inspecting post tension foundations years ago.
Would they work for say, a wall?
YAWN, These are nothing new, I cast 200 ft beams for highway bridges in Bangladesh, of all places, 40 years ago and they are still in service.
The equipment needed to cast this beam is quite substantial oh, it can’t be cast on site.
It's like golf ball-sized hail.
In 50’ sections, of course.
This vehicle takes wide turns.
Was wondering that myself, but moving, much less lifting a 200’ concrete beam into place would seem like a difficult proposition too.
I always wondered what the machine looked like that they used to stress the huge bundles of tendon cables we did on the bridges, after I watching them do single cables for the house foundations and 2 guys did that with a big specialty hand held hydraulic jack to tension each of the half inch diameter cables to over 30,000 pounds of force.
Very carefully???
Not arguing your point though... Article does not mention by name but I think these are AASHTO Girders, as the article says pre-stressed, not post tensioned...
FYI for anybody following along that does not know -
Pre-stressed, the cables are stressed first, and ran through the form work of the beam, then the concrete is poured, let set up and then the tension is released...
Post-Tension concrete, the cables are stressed after the concrete reaches some specific design strength.
They actually formed eachbean as one single unit, stretching out the cables to 200+ feet, pouring the concrete around them, letting the concrete cure to specs, then cutting the cables, causing the tension to be contained in the solidified concrete.
Or were you being sarcastic/funny?
on a 210’ long trailer?
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