 |
|
13 October 2005
Her Royal Highness Princess Royal officially opened a new pedestrian swing bridge in Thorne, South Yorkshire yesterday. Buro Happold bridges group engineered the unusual bridge that crosses over the Stainforth and Keadby Canal and provides a link between the two communities either side of the canal.
Working in partnership with Thorne Council and Thorne and Moorends Regeneration Partnership, the design team were commissioned to provide a crossing that would be a stylish landmark that could reunite the community that was separated by an inaccessible and hostile flyover. The £320,000 project was completed and delivered within budget. The project was supported by Single Regeneration Budget (SRB6), Rural Target Fund of the Objective 1 Program for South Yorkshire funded by EAGGF and DEFRA, and Thorne Moorends Town Council."
The swing bridge design team was led by Buro Happold’s bridge engineering group in collaboration with Broadway Malyan architects and specialist mechanical and electrical firm Thomson Engineering Consultancy.
The bridge reuses the old foundations of two former swing bridges that were used before the adjacent A614 road was built. Its unusual design feature involves the bridge rotating about a pintle assembly located on the north bank. The 16.5m long bridge deck is supported along one edge by a horizontal 457mm diameter steel tube and a timber deck spans between tubular steel outriggers projecting from the side of the main beam. An innovative feature of the design is the incorporation of a counterweight, positioned in opposition to the centre of gravity of the deck so that the bridge is balanced about the pintle position. This minimises the mechanical effort to move the bridge and the overturning effects on the existing bridge foundations.
The original design concept allowed the bridge to be opened manually, however to aid elderly and disabled users, it was decided that power operation would be more beneficial to the user. A relatively small capacity hydraulic ram is linked from the pintle base to the deck and extends to rotate the bridge through 90 degrees, into its canal open position. The bridge operation is controlled from the far bank, where an operator has a pedestal to provide optimal sightlines along the canal. A series of proximity switches provide information to the control system and a radio modem link is used to communicate data from one bank to the other.
For safety the bridge is designed to resist vessel collision forces from larger boats, up to 40 tonnes, travelling at 2 knots or smaller boats travelling at higher speeds. To dissipate energy from an impact the tail end latch mechanism consists of a wheel that is lowered from beneath the deck by a secondary hydraulic ram into a v-shaped bracket, bolted down to the foundation. This can allow for some plan rotation of the bridge as the wheel travels up one side or other of the v-bracket. If the bridge is in the canal open position it is protected by a fender arrangement.
Since its inception in 2002, the project has had a large degree of local community engagement. In collaboration with the client, project meetings were held and attended by members of the town’s citizen’s panel to ensure that local views were well represented. |
|
|
Buro Happold
Press office and practice information at www.burohappold.com
Buro Happold is a multi-disciplinary international practice of consulting engineers established in 1976 offering civil and structural engineering, mechanical and electrical engineering, quantity surveying, building services and environmental engineering, health and safety management, infrastructure and traffic engineering, ground engineering, façade engineering, fire engineering, computational fluid dynamics analysis, disability design consultancy, project management, urban design and a range of specialist CAD services.
Contact Solveig Sellers
Tel 020 7927 9700
Fax 0870 787 4145
Email Solveig.Sellers@burohappold.com |
|
|
|
|
|