Headquarters:
mageba sa
Trafostrasse 1
8180 Bulach
Switzerland
Tel: +41-44-872 40 50
Fax:
Extraordinary bridge components
mageba’s team in Kolkata was excited to receive the order to design and manufacture remarkable pendulum rocker bearings and large modular expansion joints for the new Bago River Crossing (Thanlyin Bridge 3) in Myanmar – and has done a great job delivering them and overseeing their installation.
It is not often that a project like this comes along – one that requires enormous pendulum rocker bearings as well as large modular expansion joints. The best example of such a project was the construction of the Ting Kau Bridge in Hong Kong in the 1990s, for which mageba designed and fabricated similar products.
The new Bago River Crossing project in the Yangon region of Myanmar has a total length of over 2.6 kilometers, including a cable-stayed bridge of length 448 m. Its construction required the supply of four exceptional pendulum rocker bearings as well as almost 70 meters of TENSA®MODULAR expansion joints with up to eight movement gaps each.
Pendulum rocker bearings can be designed to resist very large uplift (tension) forces, making them a good choice for this bridge in which the bearing tensile forces of 3,700 KN even exceed the compressive forces of 3,300 KN. But the use of bearings of this type and size in bridge construction is rare, so each project to design and manufacture them presents challenges that demand skill and experience. The manufacturing tolerances were very low, and quality control and testing were closely monitored by the client. Careful planning, including an in-depth study of the installation sequence and trial assembly in the factory, was required to ensure proper and efficient installation on site. But now that the bridge has opened to traffic, these extraordinary bearings will do their job for many years without ever being noticed by anyone except the diligent bridge maintenance team!
Contractor: Yokogawa Bridge Corporation
Owner: Ministry of Construction (MOC) Myanmar
