Dashengguan Bridge—The Largest Span Steel Arch Bridge

for High-Speed Railway

Zongyu Gao, Chief Eng.; Lunxiong Yi, Vice Chief Eng.; Hai Zhu Xiao, Design Manager; China Railway Major Bridge
Reconnaissance & Design Institute Co., Ltd., Wuhan, China. Contact: gaozy@brdi.com.cn

Abstract Wuhan–Chengdu railway and two heavy live load, large span and width.
tracks for the Nanjing metro); the If the design adopts a conventional
The Nanjing Dashengguan Bridge is a south approach is 3,674 km long while double-plane truss, the maximum
key project on the Beijing–Shanghai the length of the north approach, which force of members will be as much as
high-speed railway; it is designed to is designed to accommodate four-track 150 MN. Because of the constraints in
handle a speed of 300 km/h. The main railways, is 5,599 km. the thickness and strength of the steel
bridge has a large-span continuous plate, the cross section of the members
steel arch truss structure with a total had to be designed to be large enough
length of 1615 m. The two main spans The Main Bridge to withstand such a big force. This
over the main navigation channels of would result in difficulties in manufac-
the Yangtze River are steel arch trusses, Arrangement of Bridge Spans turing, transportation and installation.
each of which is 336 m long. The arches At the same time, the lateral distance
comprise three truss planes above the The main bridge adopts a large-span
between the two truss planes would
orthotropic deck. Erection of the steel continuous steel arch truss structure
be too wide, making the traverse
arch truss adopted the double cantile- with a total length of 1615 m, cover-
beams and bracing members very big
ver method with auxiliary cables sup- ing nearly the entire water zone. The
and more steel would be consumed.
ported by towers on piers. approach spans consist of simply sup-
Therefore, three truss planes at 15 m
ported PC box girders, each of which
Keywords: high-speed railway bridge; spacing were adopted. The four rail-
is 32 m long. Other spans across the
Dashengguan Bridge; steel arch truss way tracks are arranged between the
embankment and the drains of a power
bridge; three-plane trusses; railway trusses. Shanghai–Wuhan–Chengdu
generation plant use continuous pre-
orthotropic deck; stiffened hanger. railway is on the upstream side, while
stressed concrete box girders.
Jinghu high-speed railway is on the
The main bridge comprises two parts: downstream side. Nanjing metro lines
Introduction the first part, across the south bank are on the cantilevers of the deck on
and the deep water channels of the both sides. The cross section of the
The Nanjing Dashengguan Bridge is a Yangtze River, uses continuous steel trusses and railways is illustrated in
key project on Beijing–Shanghai high- arch trusses with spans of 108 + 192 Fig. 2.
speed railway (hereafter referred to as + 336 + 336 + 192 + 108 m. The sec-
The bottom chord of the steel arch
Jinghu high-speed railway); it is also ond part, across the north part of the
truss takes the shape of a parabolic
the main component of the Shanghai– main channels, is a parallel chord of
curve. The depth of the truss at the
Wuhan–Chengdu railway and the rail- continuous steel truss with two units
crown of the arch is 12 m, and the total
way system in Nanjing as well. Two of 2 × 84 m. The general arrangement
tracks of monorails are reserved for of the main bridge is shown in Fig. 1.
the Nanjing metro system. The bridge is straight on plane draw-
ing, and has a longitudinal slope of
The Nanjing Dashengguan Bridge is
5,9% on both ends along the profile
located 20 km upstream of the exist-
line. The main span is designed on
ing Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge and
the vertical curve with a radius of
1,5 km downstream of the Third
35 000 m.
Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge with Nanjing Beijing–Shanghai Shanghai–Wuhan Nanjing
a total length of 9,273 km. The main Metro HSR HSR Metro
The Steel Truss
bridge accommodates six-track rail-
ways (two tracks for Jinghu high-speed The bridge accommodates six-track
railway, two tracks for the Shanghai– railways and is characterized by its Fig. 2: Arrangement of the railway tracks

Beijing Shanghai
84 84 84 84 108 192 336 336 192 108
7 x 12 7 x 12 7 x 12 7 x 12 9 x 12 11 x 12 4 x 15 4 x 15 18 x 12 4 x 15 4 x 15 18 x 12 4 x 15 4 x 15 11 x 12 9 x 12
16

16

0 1 2 3 5 9
4 10
6 7 8

Fig. 1: Arrangement of the main bridge spans (Units: m)

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 depth from arch spring to the crown is
96,2 m. The 240 m long parallel chord
trusses at the two ends of the main
bridge have a constant depth of 16 m.
An N-type truss panel of length 12,0 m
is used for the structure. The transi-
tion zone between the parallel and
arch trusses is realized by a variable
depth truss. Because of the small angle
between the diagonals and the verti-
cal members of the arch truss near the
pier four panel lengths are extended to
15 m on both sides of the three main
piers with the aim to minimize the size
of the nodal plate.
The main truss has a welded, mono-
lithic joint. The members and gusset
plates were welded together in the
fabrication yard and then transported
to the site and spliced outside the joint
with high-strength bolts. The axial
force of the members differs greatly:
the maximum axial force is 93,3 MN
whereas the minimum is only 1,73
MN. In order to reduce consumption
of steel, the design uses main truss
members of three widths—600, 1000
and 1400 mm—and four depths—1000,
1200, 1400 and 1820 mm—to resist dif-
ferent forces.
Steel Type and Thickness
The steel type was determined accord-
ing to the axial force of the members.
The recently developed Q420qE grade
steel was utilized for arch rib mem-
bers that are subjected to a compres-
sive force of more than 40 MN and
for the gusset plate; Q370qE grade
for other main truss members and the
deck system; Q345qD grade for the
bracing system and longitudinal gird-
ers of the metrorail and brackets; and
Q235B grade for the auxiliary mem-
bers.The maximum thickness is 68 mm
for the gusset plate and 52 mm for the
members.
The Deck System
The running of the train on the high-
speed railway requires a higher stiff-
ness for the bridge deck and more
linear rails, so an orthotropic deck was
chosen for the bridge. The orthotropic
deck was welded to the bottom chord
of the steel truss. The deck and the bot-
tom chord of the truss formed a com-
posite slab-truss structure to resist the
load.
Detailed Design of the Deck
The horizontal top plate width of
the box-sectioned bottom chord was
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extended 400 mm more than the chord
width, which extended through the
vertical plate of bottom chord and then
butt-welded with a deck of different
thickness.At the joint of the main truss, a
rabbet was cut in the top flange of
the bottom chord; the distance from the
end rabbet to the starting point of the
cambered plate was more than 100 mm;
the nodal plate is a monolithic plate
going through the rabbet. Both sides
of the nodal plate and the end rabbet
were connected with the top flange of
the upper chord by penetrating weld-
ing joints, and the deck then combined
the nodal plate and bottom chord
effectively. A typical bottom chord is
shown in Fig. 3.
Fabrication and Installation of Deck
Components
Each deck of the panel length is
divided into five components travers-
ally, namely, the deck ends welded to
the bottom chords of triple main truss
and the other two decks between the
adjacent bottom chords. The widths of
the bottom chords in the side and mid-
dle spans are 2,52 and 3,24 m, respec-
tively, and the panel length of the side
span is the same as that of the middle
span. The width of the deck between
the adjacent truss planes is 11,76 m.
The traverse girder and deck of each
panel length were fabricated and
installed separately along the bridge’s
longitudinal directions, each member
and deck being fabricated by welding
in the yard. The longitudinal and tra-
verse girders were connected at the
site by using high-strength bolts while
the deck connection was by penetra-
tion welding. The bridge deck compo-
nent layout is shown in Fig. 4.
Deflection and Pre-Camber
Under the most unfavorable six-
track railway live load conditions, the
deflections of end span, side span and
middle span are 68,3, 178,9 and 157,2
1180 3000 2350
11980
Fig. 3: Bottom chord of the main truss (Units: mm)
Structural Engineering International 3/2010
mm, respectively, and correspond-
ingly the deflection to span ratios are
1/1581, 1/1073 and 1/2137. The verti-
cal angular rotation of the truss end
is 1,9%.
Methods of Pre-Camber Setting
In order to achieve vertical curved pre-
camber, the upper chords of the end
span and the side span were length-
ened or shortened, and the length
of hangers in the middle span was
adjusted. Different methods of pre-
camber were adopted for the parallel
chord trusses and arch trusses. For the
parallel chord trusses, the length of
the bottom panel remained constant
and the length of the top panel was
adjusted. For the steel arch truss, there
is no pre-camber in the arch; the pre-
camber was directly set by adjusting
the hanger length.
Axial Force and Deflection of the
Three-Plane Trusses
Under dead load, the maximum ten-
sile and compressive axial forces of
middle truss members are 34 163 kN
and −69 141 kN. The members subject
to maximum tensile force are those in
the upper chord at the transition of
the truss and the arch truss, while the
members subject to maximum com-
pressive force are those in the bot-
tom chord of the arch truss. Under the
most unfavorable six-track live loads,
Fig. 4: Bridge deck component
650 3000 1800
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 the maximum tensile axial force of
middle truss members is 15 157 kN in
the upper chord of the truss on pier
numbers five and nine. The axial force
of the upper chord in the transition
zone of the arch truss and on the truss
is high. The maximum compressive
axial force of members is −22 019 kN,
which occurs near the intersection of
the bottom chord and the tied mem-
bers of the arch. At the same location,
the total axial force of the middle truss
span is bigger than that of the side truss
span. The normal force is less than
5%, but the maximum force differ-
ence is about 10%. Under dead load,
the maximum difference between the
joint deflections at the bottom chord
(tied member of the arch) of side and
middle spans is about 10 mm, which
occurs near the mid-span of the arch
truss.
The Steel Hanger
The longest hangers are about 52 m;
they were fabricated as three com-
ponents at the workshop and were
233
150
1398
1000
Fig. 5: Cross section of hangers (Units: mm)
Tower crane
Temporary tower
Beijing
4# pier lift station
Crane 1
0 1 2 3 4 5
Fig. 6: Erection of the steel truss girder
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spliced on site. The hanger is of a
rectangular section, whose longitudi-
nal and traverse lengths are 1000 and
1398 mm, respectively, and has cham-
bers with size 150 × 230 mm, as shown
in Fig. 5. In order to restrain the vibra-
tion induced by wind, the following
measures were adopted:
1. The design uses a box section instead
of the conventional H section to
achieve the required rigidity and to
enhance the natural frequency.
2. The aerodynamic outline is opti-
mized by cutting the four angles of
the cross section. The octagon shape
can increase wind speed induced by
the vortex.
3. Provision for dampers is made so
that they can be added where nec-
essary according to the frequency
and results of the damper test on the
completed bridge.
The Concrete Ballast Trough for the
Railway
The net width of the ballast trough
on the Shanghai–Wuhan–Chengdu
Railway is 9,0 m and that of the Jinghu
Railway is 9,4 m.
The ballast trough is an RC structure,
150 mm thick, and the ballast wall is
1,235 m high. φ19 × 100 mm column
shear studs are welded to the steel
bridge deck. There is no expansion
joint in the ballast trough, and a 60
mm thick waterproof and anti-wearing
layer is applied to the bottom of
the trough. The maximum potential
crack width of the concrete trough is
about 0,17 mm under the combined
action of concrete shrinkage, creep,
dead load, live load and temperature
variation.
Construction Method
The erection of steel arch truss fol-
lowed a double cantilever construction
Crane 3 Crane 5 Crane 6
Temporary cable
A37
S37
E37
7# pier lift station Pier bracket
6 7
method using brackets supported
on the pier, and inclined cables pass-
ing through or attached to towers
located at the pier head. The mem-
bers of the arch were installed using a
crawl crane. The deck segments were
shipped by barges and were verti-
cally lifted into position, as shown in
Fig. 6. The parallel chord trusses were
erected using the full cantilever con-
struction method with a temporary
pier.
Design Speed of the Railway Lines
on the Bridge
The design speed of Jinghu high-
speed railway is 350 km/h. According
to the general static analysis result,
under the six-track railway live load,
the most unfavorable condition, the
deflections of all spans are less than
1/1000, and the vertical angular rota-
tion of the truss end is less than 2%.
The results of the simulated vibra-
tion analysis show that when the
train passes through the bridge at a
speed of 350 km/h, both the safety
and comfort indexes match the
requirements outlined in the design
specification.
Because the bridge is near the South
Railway Station of Nanjing, according
to the results of train analysis report,
the maximum speed of the train,
assuming the train berthed at the
South Railway Station, is 343 km/h,
nearly equal to the speed envisaged at
the time of design.
Although the results indicate that
the static and dynamic performance
conform to the specification, con-
sidering that nowhere in the world
trains run at 300 km/h on a bridge
whose span is larger than 300 m to
date, the target speedwas set as 300
km/h. Any required adjustment of the
speed will be based on a period of trial
operation.
Tower crane
Shanghai
Temporary tower
Crane 4
A37′
S37′ 10# pier lift station
Platform of
E37′ member
assembly
8 9 10
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 Fig. 7: The photo of Nanjing Dashengguan Bridge after closure
Conclusion
A bridge is an important structure for
any high-speed railway. It influences
the vehicle stability, safety and comfort
level of passengers greatly. At present,
the Jinghu High-Speed Railway and
the dedicated Beijing–Guangzhou
Railway Line are both under con-
struction. There are four large-span
high-speed railway bridges across the
Yangtze River and the Yellow River
and also on the two lines, namely, the
Wuhan Tianxingzhou Yangtze River
Bridge, the Nanjing Dashenguan
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SEI
EI Data Block
Yangtze River Bridge, the Zhengzhou Owner:
Yellow River Bridge and the Jinan Beijing–Shanghai High-speed Railway
Yellow River Bridge. All the four Company Limited
large-span bridges adopt steel trusses Structural design:
as stiffening girders. The Wuhan China Railway Major Bridge
Tianxingzhou Yangtze River Bridge Reconnaissance & Design Institute
was closed on 10 September 2008. The Co., Ltd.
Nanjing Dashengguan Bridge was Main contractor:
closed in July 2009 (Fig. 7 shows the China Railway Major Bridge
photo after closure) and will be was Engineering Co., Ltd.
opened to traffic in December 2010.
The steel truss installations of the Steel (t): 200 000
Zhengzhou Yellow River Bridge and Concrete (Mm3): 12,2
the Jinan Yellow River Bridge have Total cost (USD million): 738,8
already begun.
Service date
(expected): December 2010
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