HIGH-SPEED

HELPER
DESIGN OF THE
ALMONTE BRIDGE

THE DEFINITIVE PUBLICATION FOR BRIDGE PROFESSIONALS WORLDWIDE | ISSUE NO. 72 | THIRD QUARTER 2013 | WWW.BRIDGEWEB.COM

n SPECIALIST SOFTWARE

HIGH-SPEED
HELPER

Midas model for construction stage analysis of the Almonte River Bridge

Designing an arch bridge to carry high-speed trains is a complex and demanding process.
Guillermo Capelln and Juan Jos Arenas explain how software can help

onstruction is just beginning on the main structure of what will be the worlds
longest high-speed railway arch bridge when it opens in 2015. The 384m-long
main span structure, which is close to Cceres in the western side of Spain,
will carry high-speed trains travelling from the capital Madrid to Extremadura
on the Portuguese border.
The Almonte River Bridge designed by Arenas & Asociados is 996m long and will carry
trains across the Alcantara Reservoir on an arch structure. As well as being the longest
high speed railway arch it will be the third longest concrete arch bridge in the world. Its
design and construction incorporate many special features which required demanding
and complex analysis; this was carried out using bridge engineering software Midas Civil.
The high speed rail system has undergone rapid expansion in Spain in the last two
decades and last year became the second largest network in the world, with some
2,900km already in use and 1,500km under construction. The particular features of high
speed rail bridges that make them so demanding to design include heavier loads than
road bridges, dynamic effects, significant horizontal loads, fatigue considerations, and
functional considerations such as the smaller permissible deflections, accelerations and
limited length that relate to rail expansion joint capacity and track-structure interaction.
Given these peculiarities, spans longer than 100m are unusual for high speed rail, rendering this structure even more challenging.
The arch bridge deck has a typical span of 45m over the total deck length of 996m
and the 14m-wide deck, which consists of a 3.1m-deep box girder, will be constructed
using a movable scaffolding system. The arch will be built using a cantilever method with
form travellers and temporary stays tied back to two temporary steel towers. Over the

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arch section of the bridge, the spans are reduced to 42m.

The main challenges in the analysis of the structure included calculation of the antifunicular shape of the arch, taking into account construction stages, non-linear analysis
for the service limit state and ultimate limit state, dynamic analysis and track-structure
interaction. Special studies included wind tunnel testing and non-linear behaviour.
The 384m-long concrete arch structure has an octagonal cross-section with a depth
that varies from 4.2m at the key section to 6.3m at the end sections. The width at the
central key section is 6m, increasing towards the end sections. Beyond the central 220m,
the arch splits into two separate sections that diverge to a maximum overall width of
19m. This provides the necessary lateral stability against wind loads and addresses the
global instability phenomena stemming from the narrow deck and the heavy railway
loads. The arch will be built of 80MPa self-compacting concrete.
The typical deck section is a 3.1m-deep prestressed concrete box girder. Its 14m width
is typical of high speed rail bridges and can accommodate two railway tracks and all
the functional elements such as the railway platform, communications ducts, ballast,
electrification catenary posts, service paths, barriers and so on.
The concrete arch staged erection forms the basis for predicting the real static state
of the structure and carrying out all other calculations such as non-linear analysis, antifunicular curve analysis, cable stay tensioning forces and so on.
The arch will be erected using the cable-stayed cantilever method; its total length is
divided into 66 segments which will be cast in situ, 33 on each side of the bridge.
In order to ensure that they stay within the allowable stresses and that the optimum
geometry of the arch is maintained, the segments will be supported by temporary

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n SPECIALIST SOFTWARE

Midas model for

stage analysis

stay cables during

the construction.
A total of 26 cables will be
used on each side with corresponding back stays; cables one to
eight will be anchored to piers six and
15, while the anchorages for the remaining
cables will be placed on temporary steel towers
that will be built on the piers. Cable forces will be
adjusted during the construction process, and some
cables will be released at intermediate construction
stages in order to avoid excessive stress. Once the arch
structure has been closed, the piers on top of the arch and
the deck structure will be erected.
For the concrete arch erection using temporary stays and steel towers,
a Midas model was used for stage analysis. The calculation process was divided
into a series of steps, the first one being to carry out non-linear analysis for every
construction stage right up to the permanent load situation. Geometrical imperfections
were considered for every stage.
Secondly, non-linear material and geometric long-term analysis was carried out for
creep and shrinkage due to member forces resulting from the first step of the process.
The third step was to carry out non-linear (material and geometric) analysis for
thermal actions, followed by incremental non-linear analysis to the ultimate limit state
starting with the geometry and member forces resulting from the third step.
Permanent loads are divided into five steps, from the characteristic to factored
values. Live loads are also stepped in five increments, so the ultimate limit state values
were reached at the same step for both type of loads. At every step, the section stiffness
was re-calculated to comply with the strain-stress EC-2 models, both for concrete and
steel. This way, concrete cracking was considered for every step.
Analysis took into account the effects of cracking on concrete, creep and shrinkage
of concrete, non-linear relationships - steel and concrete, and the construction stage

influence for the final safety of the finished structure

Second order effects were studied considering the impact of existing
imperfections on the initial arch geometry. It was considered as a deformation homothetic with the first buckling mode, which was introduced as a different
model of initial geometry for each load combination.
As previously described, permanent and variable loads achieve their ultimate limit
state at the same load step. For permanent loads, values from characteristic to factored
were divided into five steps and live loads were also stepped in five increments. For every
step, the section stiffness was re-calculated according to the stress-strain relationships
given by EC-2 for concrete and reinforcement steel, properly considering concrete cracking. This was an incremental, iterative process.
Firstly, no cracking was considered, and this assumption was checked for member
forces obtained at each calculation step, considering sectional moment-curvature
diagrams. Secondly, the section stiffness was modified according to EC-2 stress-strain
diagrams, and new member forces were calculated.
Finally, checking was carried out if the considered stiffness matched the tension levels achieved. This process was repeated until there was no significant variation between
the stiffness considered for the member force calculations and the one obtained on the
moment-curvature diagram. In this incremental calculation procedure, the stiffness was
obtained as the tangent to the moment-curvature diagram at the point corresponding to
the previous load step.
Given the long span and the structures slenderness, it is necessary to take into
account the aeroelastic phenomena in the bridge analysis, covering all the oscillatory
effects induced by the wind-structure interaction. This is not only because IAPF-2007
specifications require this type of study for spans longer than 200m, but also the fact
that the structures main modal vibration frequencies are very low below 0.3Hz indicates that the structure may be sensitive to these effects.
A complete wind analysis study was carried out including wind tunnel sectional
aerodynamic response analysis and aeroelastic studies in the wind tunnel with a scaled
model for the bridge at the final state and construction cantilever stages. The tests were
carried out in the Limit Layer II Wind Tunnel at Western Ontario University in Canada.
These studies validated the structures behaviour in service and construction stages
and also underlined the importance of using aerodynamic sections for the arch from an
early design stage.
Construction of the bridge began in 2012 and when Bd&e went to press, all the foundations, piers and most of the deck outside of the arch had been completed. Arch erection
was just starting and is due to continue through 2014, using the temporary stay system.
The arch piers and deck are due to be finished by the summer of 2015 n
Guillermo Capelln is technical director and Juan Jos Arenas is president of Arenas &
Asociados

Owner: ADIF (Spanish Railway Infrastructure Administrator)

Project design: Arenas & Asociados
Construction: FCC
Project management: Arenas & Asociados, IDOM
Piers for the bridge under construction in June this year

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Bd&e | ISSUE 72 | 2013