Monorail movements

Cairo’s new monorail system is being built with thousands of newly developed mageba expansion joint components facilitating the movements of its elevated structures.

Egypt’s ancient capital is currently being equipped with two state-of-the-art monorail lines to complement its vast existing transportation network: a 54-kilometre line connecting the New Administrative Capital with East Cairo, and a 42-kilometre line connecting 6th of October City with Giza – home of the Great Sphinx and the Great Pyramid. It is said that it will be the longest driverless monorail system in the world when it is completed in the coming years.

mageba is supporting the construction of the system by supplying bearings and expansion joints to facilitate the superstructure movements. The bearings are of type RESTON®CYLINDER and RESTON®POT, with the pot bearings being of the recently developed HP (“High-performance”) type. Most interesting, however, from the point of view of our team on the project, has been the development of the brand-new TENSA®MONORAIL RSFD expansion joint – a special version of the TENSA®FINGER RSFD expansion joint that has been adapted for use in accommodating expansion and contraction movements of concrete monorail beams. At 889 locations along the system’s monorail beams, a five-part solution was required – a short expansion joint on the top of the beam, and two further expansion joints on each side of the beam. To increase the challenge, all of the expansion joint elements – 4,445 in all – required to be manufactured and delivered to site in just six months, with the long-term performance confirmed by fatigue testing involving two million load cycles. With the expansion joints all delivered on schedule, and another monorail project already ongoing in Panama with specially developed bearings, we are excited to see what else the future will hold for us in this fascinating field of the transportation industry.

Monorail system designer: INNOVA
Contractor: Imagro
Owner: NAT

Construction of part of Cairo’s new twin-rail monorail system, with each concrete rail carrying a monorail train on its own

The cast in-situ part of each concrete monorail beam, on top of each pier, is designed to accommodate superstructure movements by means of short expansion joints on the top and sides of each beam

Design representation of the expansion joint element on top of each monorail beam, including downturns to facilitate the upper wheels that maintain the train’s horizontal alignment

Design representation (shown here horizontal rather than vertical) of the expansion joint element on each side of each monorail beam – at some distance below the top of the beam – which facilitates the lower wheels that maintain the train’s horizontal alignment

The expansion joint substructures were delivered to site with temporary plates holding them together – in place of the pairs of finger plates which were delivered separately

Some of the pairs of finger plates which were delivered to site separately, to be installed on the expansion joint substructures following their installation and concreting in place

Preparation for installation of the substructure of the upper part of an expansion joint– complete with a formwork element to facilitate the in-situ concrete work

Lifting of the upper part of an expansion joint into position, complete with the formwork element that will facilitate pouring of the in-situ concrete at each side of the joint

Securing of the upper part of an expansion joint to the rebar from the precast superstructure at each side of the movement gap

Design representation (exploded view) of a RESTON®CYLINDER bearing of the type that will support part of the Cairo monorail system’s superstructure

Design representation (exploded view) of a RESTON®POT bearing of the HP (“High Performance”) type that will support part of the Cairo monorail system’s superstructure

mageba is a member of the International Monorail Association, and participated in September at its Monorailex 2022 conference at Europa-Park in southern Germany