Dashengguan Bridge the Longest Span Arch Bridge for High-Speed Railway

Zongyu GAO PhD,Chief Engineer BRDI Wuhan, P.R.China

gaozy@brdi.com.cn Zongyu Gao, born 1964, received his bachelors degree of civil engineering from South-West Jiaotong University in 1985; received his Doctors degree of bridge & tunnel engineering from Huazhong University of Science & Technology in 2007

Lunxiong YI Deputy Chief Engineer

BRDI Wuhan, P.R.China

yilx@brdi.com.cn
Lunxiong Yi, born 1966, received his bachelors degree of civil engineering from Changsha Railway Institute in 1987.

Hai Zhu XIAO M.E., Civil Engineer BRDI Wuhan, P.R.China

xiaohz@brdi.com.cn
Haizhu Xiao, born 1970, received his bachelor degree of civil engineering from South-West Jiaotong University in 1992;received his masters degree of bridge engineering from Tongji University in 2007

Summary
The Nanjing Dashengguan Bridge is the control project on the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway, whose design speed is 300km/h. The main bridge adopts large span continuous steel arch truss structure with a total length of 1615m. The two main spans over main navigation channels of the Yangtze River utilizes steel arch truss 336m long each. The arches comprise three truss planes above orthotropic deck. Erection of the steel arch truss adopts double cantilever method with auxiliary cables supported by towers on piers. Keywords: high-speed railway bridge; Dashengguan Bridge; steel arch truss bridge; three-plane trusses; railway orthotropic deck; stiffened hanger

1 General Introduction
The Nanjing Dashengguan Bridge is a control project on Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway (hereafter referred to as Jinghu High-Speed Railway), it is also the main component part of the Shanghai-Wuhan-Chengdu Railway and the railway system in Nanjing as well. There is reservation double-track space for terminal railway of Nanjing Metro. The Nanjing Dashengguan Bridge is located 20Km upstream of the existing Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge and 1.5km downstream of the Third Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge. Total length of the Nanjing Dashengguan Bridge is 9.273km, of which the main bridge and the south approach is 3.674km accommodating six track railway (double track for Jinghu High-speed railway, double tracks for the Shanghai-Wuhan-Chengdu Railway and double lines for the Nanjing Metro), the length of north approach is 5.599km and designed to accommodate
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four-track railway.

Fig. 1 Arrangement of the Main Bridge Spans

2. The Main Bridge

2.1 Arrangement of Bridge Spans The main bridge adopts large span continuous steel arch truss with a total length of 1615m, nearly covering the entire water zone. The approach spans adopts simple-supported box girder 32m long each, the spans across the embankment and the drain of a power generation plant adopts continuous prestressed concrete box girder, the total length of the bridge is 9273m. The main bridge comprises two units: the first unit, across the south bank and the deep water channels of the Yangtze River, adopts continuous steel arch trusses with spans of 108+192+336+336+192+108m. The second unit, across the north of the main channels, is parallel chord continuous steel truss with spans of 284m. The general arrangement of the main bridge is shown in Fig 1. The bridge is straight on plane drawing, and has 5.9 longitudinal slope on both ends along profile line. The main span is designed on vertical curve with the radius of 35000m. 2.2 The Steel Truss The bridge accommodates six-track railway. It is featured for its heavy live load, large span and width, so if the design adopts a conventional double-plane truss , the maximum force of members will be as much as 150MN, but because of restraint of the thickness and strength of the steel plate, the cross-section of members must be designed very large to maintain such big force, then it will result in difficulties in manufacture, transport and installation. At the same time, the traversal distance between the two truss planes will be too large, which will make the traversal beams and bracing members very big and more steel will be consumed. Finally three-plane trusses at 15m spacing are utilized. The four railway tracks are enclosed Nanjing Beijing-Shanghai Shanghai Wuhan Nanjing in the trusses, of which the Metro HSR HSR Metro Shanghai-Wuhan-Chengdu Railway on the upstream side, Jinghu High-Speed Railway on the downstream side, and Nanjing metro lines on the cantilevers of the deck on both sides. The cross-section of truss Fig.2 Arrangement of the Railway Tracks and railway is illustrated in Fig. 2. The bottom chord of steel arch truss adopts parabola curve, the truss at the arch top is 12m deep, and the total height from arch toe to crown is 96m. The side spans adjacent to the continuous steel arch are parallel chord trusses with 240m spans, the depth of truss is 16m with the panel length of 12.0m, and N-type truss is adopted for the structure. The transition zone between parallel truss and arch truss is realized by variable depth truss. Because the angle of diagonals and vertical members
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of the arch truss near the pier is very small, and in order to minimize the size of nodal plate, four panel length is extended to 15m at both side of the three main piers. The main truss adopts welding monolithic node. The members and nodal plates are welded together in the fabrication yard, and then transported to the site and spliced outside the node with high strength bolts. The axial force of the members differs greatly: the maximum axial force is 93.3MN, but minimum is only 1.73MN, in order to reduce consumption of steel, the design adopts three widths for the main truss members: 600mm, 1000mm and 1400mm. and the depth of member is set as 1000mm1200mm1400mm and 1820mm to adapt to different force. 2.3 Steel Type and Thickness The steel type is determined according to axial force of the members. The newly developed Q420qE steel is utilized for arch rib members subject to compressive force more than 40MN and nodal plate, and Q370qE. For other main truss members and deck system, Q345qD for bracing system, longitudinal girders for the metro and brackets, and Q235B for the auxiliary structure. The maximum thickness is 68mm for the nodal plate, and 52mm for the members. 2.4 The Deck System The running of train on high-speed railway requires higher stiffness of bridge deck and more linear rail, so orthotropic deck is chosen for the bridge. The orthotropic deck is welded to the steel bottom chord of truss forming a composite slab-truss structure, then the deck and bottom chord of truss work together to bear the load. Detail design of the deck: the horizontal top plate of box-sectioned bottom chord is extended 400mm more than the chord width, extending through the vertical plate of bottom chord and then butt-welded with the deck in different thickness. At the node of the main truss, rabbet was cutted in top flange of bottom chord, the distance from end rabbet to start point of arc of nodal plate is more than 100mm, and the nodal plate is a monolithic plate going through the rabbet. Both sides of the nodal plate and end rabbet are connected with the top flange of top chord by penetration welding joints, then the deck combines the nodal plate and bottom chord effectively. Typical bottom chord is shown in Fig. 3.

Fig 3 Bottom Chord of The Main Truss Fabrication and installation of deck components: Each deck between the panel length is divided into five components traversallynamely three bottom chord with partial deck and double deck between the adjacent bottom chord. The width of bottom chords in side span is 2.52m,and that of the middle span is 3.24m, the panel length of the side span is the same as that of the middle span. The width of deck between adjacent truss planes is 11.76m. Traversal girder and deck of each panel length is fabricated and installed separately along the bridge longitudinal axial, each member and deck is fabricated by welding method in yard. The site
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connection of longitudinal and traversal girders is realized by high strength bolts except that deck is penetrated welded. The bridge deck component layout see figure 4. 2.5 Deflection and Pre-camber Under most unfavorable 6-track railway live load condition, the deflection of end span, side span and middle span is 68.3mm, 178.9mm, and 157.2mm respectively producing deflection to span ratio of 1/1581, 1/1073 and 1/2137 correspondingly. The vertical angular rotation of the truss end is 1.9.

Fig 4 Bridge Deck Component

Methods of pre-camber setting: In order to achieve preset vertical curve pre-camber, the top chords of the end span and the side span are lengthened or shortened, and the length of hangers in the middle span is adjusted. Different methods of pre-camber are adopted for the parallel chord trusses and arch trusses. For the parallel chord trusses, the length of bottom panel remains constant, and the length of top panel is adjusted. For steel arch truss, there is no pre-camber in arch, the pre-camber is directly maintained by adjustment of the hanger length. 2.6 Inner Force and Deflection of the Three Trusses Under dead load, the maximum tensile and compressive axial force of middle truss members is 34163kN and-69141kN, the members subject to maximum tensile force are those in the top chord at the transition of the truss and the arch truss; the members subject to maximum compressive force are those in the bottom chord of the arch truss. Under most unfavorable six-track live load, the maximum tensile axial force of middle truss members is 15157kN in the top chord of truss on pier number 5 and 9. The axial force of top chord in the transition zone of the arch truss and the truss is big as well. The maximum compressive axial force of members is -22019kN occurring near the intersection of bottom chord and tied members of the arch. At the same location, the total axial force of middle truss span is bigger than that of the side truss span, the normal force ranges less than 5% , but the maximum force difference is about 10%. Under dead load, the maximum difference of deflection of nodes of the bottom chord (tied member of the arch) of side and middle span is about 10mm, occurs near the mid-span of the arch truss,. 2.7 The Steel Hanger The longest hangers are about 52m, they are fabricated in three components in the workshop and spliced on site. The cross-section of hangers is rectangle shaped with chamfers, its longitudinal length is 1000mm, traversal length 1398mm, and the chamfer is 150x230mm, see Fig. 5. In order to restrain the vibration induced by wind, the following measures are adopted 1) The design abandons conventional H section and adopts, box section to maintain required rigidity and enhance natural frequency. 2) The aerodynamic outline is optimized by cutting the four angles of the cross section, the octagon shape can increase wind speed induced Fig. 5 Cross-Section of Hangers
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by vortex. 3) The space for dampers is reserved, then dampers can be added where necessary according the frequency and damper test of the completed bridge. 2.8 The Concrete Ballast Trough for the Railway The net width of ballast trough on Shanghai-Wuhan-Chengdu Railway is 9.0m that of the and Jinghu Railway is 9.4m. The ballast trough is RC structure, 15cm thick, and the ballast wall is 1.235m high. 19x100mm colume shear studs are welded to the steel bridge deck. There is no expansion joint in the ballast trough, and 6cm thick waterproof and anti-wearing layer is applied at the bottom of the trough . The maximum potential crack width of the concrete trough is about 0.17mm under the combination function of concrete shrinkage, creep, dead load, live load and the temperature variation. 2.9 Construction Method The erection of steel arch truss adopts double cantilever construction method by brackets supported by the pier, with assistance of cable supported tower seated on pier head. The members of arch are installed by crawl crane. The deck segments are shipped by barges on water and vertically uplifted into position, see Fig. 6. The parallel chord trusses are erected with full cantilever Fig.6 Erection of the Steel Truss Girder construction method with temporary pier. 2.10 Design Speed of the Railway Lines on the Bridge The design speed of Jinghu High-Speed Railway is 350km/h. According to the general static analysis result, under the 6-track railway live load, the most unfavorable condition, the deflection of all span is less than 1/1000, and the vertical angular rotation of the truss end is less than 2. The train-bridge coupled vibration simulated analysis result reveals that when the train passes through the bridge at a speed of 350km/h, both the safety and comfort index can meet requirements of the design specification. Because of the bridge is near the South Railway Station of Nanjingaccording to the result of train analysis report, the maximum speed of the train, assuming the train berthed at the South Railway Station, is 343km/h, nearly up to the design speed . Although the result indicates the static and dynamic performance conforming to the specification, considering there is no practice of more than 300km/h train running on a bridge whose span length large than 300m internationally up to now, the target design speed of the bridge is determined as 300km/h. Adjustment of the speed will be based on a period of trial operation after completion of the bridge.

3 Brief Summary
Bridge is the important structure for high speed railway; it influences greatly the running stability of the train, safety, and comfort felted by passengers. At present, the Jinghu High Speed Railway and the Dedicated Beijing-Guangzhou Railway Line are both under construction. There are four bridges on the across the Yangtze river and the Yellow river on
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the two lines, the Wuhan Tianxingzhou Yangtze River Bridge, the Nanjing Dashenguan Yangtze River Bridge, the Zhengzhou Yellow river bridge and the Jinan Yellow river bridge. All of the four large span bridges adopt steel trusses as stiffening girders, which can provide good stiffness. The Wuhan Tianxingzhou Yangtze River Bridge is already closed on 10 September 2008, and will be opened to traffic in the first half year of 2009. The Nanjing Dashenguan Bridge is under cantilever construction of the steel trussed, and the steel truss installation of Zhengzhou Yellow River Bridge and Jinan Yellow River Bridge is already started.

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