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Pont de Normandie Bridge, France
Year of Completion: 1995
Construction Cost: $400M
Client: Chambre de Commerce et
dIndustrie du Havre
Services Performed:
Review of Preliminary Design
Detailed Design of Main Bridge
Steel Structures
Construction of the Normandy Bridge.
BenC.
Gerwick,
Inc.
01-063e-02a
The Normandy Bridge is situated about
15 km east of Le Havre, and crossesthe river Seine. With an effective width
of 19.7 m the bridge will carry a two-
lane dual motorway. The superstruc-
ture of the viaducts and a 116 m por-
tion of the stiffening girder from each
pylon into the main span is designed
as a concrete box girder, whereas the
central 624 m part of the stiffening
girder is designed as an aerodynami-
cally shaped closed steel box to re-
duce the dead weight.
Prefabricated steel panels with trough
stiffeners were assembled to full width
sections in the assembly yard. The
yard contained two production lines for
welding and trial assembly and one
painting station for the exterior surface
treatment. The interior of the steel box
girder will be protected against corro-sion by means of dehumidication fol-
lowing principles used in large Danish
steel bridges over the last 22 years.
In order to strengthen the box girder
plate diaphragms are placed per every
four meters through the full length of
the steel bridge. At the bridge edge all
the cable stays are attached to transfer
load from the bridge deck to the ca-
bles. These complicated edge sections
arrived to the yard as prefabricated
items including the eye plates for the
cable anchors. Accurate planning was
required to make the various panels t
together.
The bridge erection proceeded from
the concrete girder ends close to the
pylons and continued until nal gap
closure at midspan. Each section was
initially loaded onto a barge and trans-
ported to bridge site, and it was then
hoisted, welded and attached to the
cable stays. The cable was thenstressed and adjusted for geometric
control.
The stay cables are of the Freyssinet
type where parallel-galvanized seven-
wire strands are arranged inside a PE-
duct. The cables are arranged in two
semifan shaped slightly inclined cable
planes and suspend the girder each
19.65 m.
The concrete pylons are shaped as aninverted Y, and will rise 215 m above
the river.
Aerial view of the nished bridge.