Estudo do Comportamento Estrutural da Ponte Militar Mabey & Johnson - Soluções para aumentar a capacidade de carga e o comprimento de montagem

Eduardo Miguel Da Silva Osório

Key information

Authors:

Eduardo Miguel Da Silva Osório (Eduardo Miguel Da Silva Osório)

Supervisors:

José Joaquim Costa Branco de Oliveira Pedro (José Joaquim Costa Branco de Oliveira Pedro); Pedro José da Silva Gonçalves Matias

Published in

January 21, 2021

Abstract

Since the 1930s, military logistical bridges have been essential to the various theatres of operations allowing to cross existing obstacles, like gaps and water courses, in a short period of time. In recent years they have also played a very important role in supporting civilian populations, whether in cases of environmental disasters or as a temporary substitute for bridges being rehabilitated. Seeking to increase both the length and the loading capacity of the most recent military logistic bridge in Portugal, Mabey Bridge, several numerical finite element models have been developed and duly benchmarked with other studies, in order to evaluate the load capacity of the bridge for a continuous deck assembly configuration with two 57.91 m long spans. Taking into account the loading limitations of the studied solution, both for military and civil traffic, several possible reinforcement solutions were evaluated, from geometric change of the bridge, to section changes and addition of new elements in order to find a solution that verifies the security for military loads according to NATO regulations and civil loads according to Eurocode 1 - Part 2. Once a feasible solution was found, the incremental launching of the bridge was studied bearing in mind the solution proposed by the supplier and an actual launch that was possible to follow and study, at the Bridge Company of the Engineering Regiment No. 1, which served as a reference for the study of the incremental launching of the bridge.