Professional Documents
Culture Documents
A Bridge To The "Island of Happiness": Saadiyat Bridge Project in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
A Bridge To The "Island of Happiness": Saadiyat Bridge Project in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Dipl.-Ing. Peter Seitz, Dipl.-Ing. Holger Hauser, Dipl.-Ing. Nico Schmidt, Dipl.-Ing.(FH) Werner Kuhnlein
1. Generals
The United Arab Emirates are located on the Ara-
bian Peninsula on the Persian Gulf. Abu Dhabi is
the largest of the seven Emirates and its capital also
serves as the country's capital.
The UAE only gained independence in 1971. Its Abb. 2: Future development of Saadiyat Island
population is amongst the fastest growing in the
world. Local petroleum reserves are among the Two bridges and a tunnel will connect the island
largest and are the source of the emirate's wealth. with the mainland and the international airport lo-
Income from oil exports are used for an extensive cated only 25 kilometers away.
development programme centred on improving
infrastructure. K+S were entrusted with the detailed and construc-
tion engineering for one of these large-scale proj-
Individual cars constitute the main mode of trans- ects. The task was performed in cooperation with
portation and vehicular traffic has grown signifi- partner office SRP while most of the foundation
cantly in the last years. engineering was done by Züblin.
Both bridge units are erected as three parallel box tional commuter rail.
girders. These separate boxes are later connected The box girders are prestressed transversely with
laterally by a 88 cm wide longitudinal joint. This 50% of the tendons spanning across a single box
results in a total roadway width of 53.6 m for 5 lanes and the remaining 50% spanning continuously
in each direction as well as shoulders. Along the across all three.
centreline a 9.40 m wide corridor is kept for an op-
Abb. 5: Standard cross section Unit 1 – Incremental launching with transverse prestressing
Units 4, 5 and 6 with spans of no more than 55 m have been very costly and the eventual contractor
each connect to the branching section. The single- looked for a more cost-effective alternative solution.
cell box girders with constant depth carry the di-
vided lanes to the island side. Unit 5 carries the DYWIDAG Bau GmbH as a subcontractor to the
commuter rail on the middle superstructure. The box Joint venture of Züblin/Saif Bin Darwish initially
girders are not connected transversely on this side hired K+S to check the quantities provided in the
of the bridge. The two ramps making up Unit 6 lead tender documents where all specifications were
traffic onto or off the bridge. given as lump sums. The check yielded significant
differences, i.e. the tendered quantities were very
Precast segmental erection of Units 1 and 4 through low.
6 was originally planned while Unit 2 was to be cast
in place as balanced cantilevers with Unit 3 also In consequence, K+S made an alternative, value-
cast in place but on falsework. added design proposal where Unit 1 was erected
using the incremental launching method. Units 4, 5
and 6 were all to be cast in place on falsework. A
3. Alternative Design Proposal commonly used mix of internal bonded prestressing
The author of the original design was PARSONS combined with external tendons within the box
International Ltd. girder was also proposed.
Differing from standard practice in Germany, inter- Units 2 and 3 remained unchanged as cast-in-place
national projects of this scale are often almost fully structures, although the staging of Unit 2 was ad-
designed before a contractor is chosen such that justed to fit the available form travellers. Longitudi-
very detailed drawings are available during tender. nal joints were added in Unit 3 to allow for construc-
The contracting party is only required to provide tion in three stages which significantly reduced the
shop or working drawings for actual erection. formwork requirements for the soil-supported scaf-
folding.
The precast segmental construction method is
widely used internationally. The deck is erected The footings were optimized as well as part of the
using precast sections and stressed to each other value added design.
using external tendons. Most of the original design
was based on this erection method. However, this 4. Geology and Soil Conditions
method also requires heavy machinery and shoring
to lift the massive concrete elements and to keep One of the main prerequisites for petroleum depos-
them in place until the segments can be its are sedimentary rock layers formed from sand
prestressed. The supply of these machines would under very high pressure. The entire island is based
The V-shaped piers with pier table are clad with a The originally envisioned construction method – the
façade of fibre cement plates for architectural rea- balanced cantilever method – was kept in the alter-
sons. This highly aesthetic element will result in a native proposal. The construction engineering as-
visually very elegant bridge structure. pects consisted primarily in optimizing the construc-
tion process and providing more economic reinforc-
ing arrangements. The construction process was
laid out in tight cooperation with the subcontracting
company DYWIDAG Bau GmbH.
Abb. 15: 3D model of the three parallel balanced cantilevers at axes 10 and 11
As large temperature loadings and related deforma- Design and assembly of the formwork for the con-
tions are to be expected during construction of the struction of the V-shaped piers and the pier tables
balanced cantilevers, the determination of the tem- posed a significant challenge as well. The very large
perature gradient during adjustment of the form pier tables of 39 m length and 10.25 m depth at
travellers and height surveys is of utmost impor- heights of up to 30 m required special solutions to
tance. Temperature sensors are provided accord- maximize economy for formwork installation and
ingly and analyzed constantly. concreting.
Owner:
8. Bridge Data
Construction Cost: ca. 145 Mio EUR
Construction phase: 2006-2009
Bridge length: 1455m
Design:
Bridge surface: ca. 85.000m2
Main span length: 200m
Girder depth: 3.50-10.25m
Bridge height: max. ca. 31m
Joint Venture:
Bau GmbH
Ground Engineering
Ingenieur-Consult GmbH