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March 8, 2014 |
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Image:ImageTingKauBridgeEarlyMorn.jpg|thumb|Ting Kau Bridge, early morning 2004. Underneath is the Rambler Channel. The bridge is one of a multitude of infrastructure projects for the new Chep Lap Kok airport, located on Lantau Island some 30 km from Hong Kong island. Together with the Tsing Ma Bridge and the Kap Shui Mun cable-stayed Bridge, it provides a stunning panorama in the Hong Kong landscape on the way to the international airport. Ting Kau Bridge is not just a landmark structure but also carries the heaviest traffic volume of the three bridges, with many container trucks travelling to and from mainland China and the HK container port. A chromatic study and specially designed architectural lighting are intended to set the bridge off in its surroundings. Ting Kau Bridge is the world's first major 4-span cable-stayed bridge. This meant that the central tower had to be stabilised longitudinally, the problem being solved using the longest (465 metres) cable stays ever used in a bridge.The design of this bridge contains special features such as single leg towers, which are stabilised by transverse cables just like masts of a sailboat. The Ting Kau Bridge and approach viaducts link the western New Territories and the mainland to an expressway called Lantau Fixed Crossing, which connects the new Airport with Kowloon and Hong Kong. It meets the Lantau Fixed Crossing on Tsing Yi Island only 500 m from the Tsing Ma Bridge. The cable-stayed bridge has 3 towers with heights of 170 metres, 194 metres, and 158 metres, located on the Ting Kau headland, on a land reclamation|reclaimed island in Rambler Channel (which spans 900 metres wide) and on the north-west Tsing Yi shoreline respectively. The arrangement of separate decks on both sides of the 3 towers contributes to the slender appearance of the bridge while acting favourably under heavy wind and typhoon loads. Each deck carries 3 traffic lanes and a hard shoulder. At a design & construction cost of HK$1.94 billion, it is one of the longest cable-stayed bridges in the world. Joint Venture Ting Kau Contractors designed and built Ting Kau Bridge. The joint venture was comprised Cubiertas Y Mzov and Entrecanales Y Tavora, both of Spain; Germany's Ed Zublin; and Hong Kong's Downer and Co.
The Tsing Ma Bridge spans 1,377 metres and is the world's longest suspension bridge carrying both road and rail traffic. The upper deck carries a dual three-lane carriageway and there are two tracks of railway and a two-lane emergency roadway in the lower deck for maintenance and the diversion of traffic during high winds. The Kap Shui Mun Bridge is the world's longest cable-stayed bridge carrying both road and railway traffic. It has a main span of 430 metres and an overall length of 1323 metres and because it spans the main marine channel between Ma Wan and Lantau, its vertical headroom is more than 40 metres above sea level. The Ting Kau Bridge and Approach Viaduct are 1,875 metres long while the triple tower bridge has an overall length of 1,177 metres. Three towers have been specially designed to withstand extreme wind and typhoon conditions. To protect the three giants costing US$1.3 million, and to ensure road user comfort and bridge safety, the Hong Kong Highways Department has installed a sophisticated bridge monitoring system to oversee the integrity, durability and reliability of the bridges. The Wind and Structural Health Monitoring System (WASHMS) has four different levels of operation ? the sensory systems, data acquisition systems, local centralised computer systems and global central computer system. The sensory system consists of approximately 900 sensors and their relevant interfacing units. With more than 350 sensors on the Tsing Ma bridge, 350 on Ting Kau and 200 on Kap Shui Mun, the structural behaviour of the bridges is measured 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The sensors include accelerometers, strain gauges, displacement transducers, level sensing stations, anemometers, temperature sensors and dynamic weigh-in-motion sensors. They measure everything from tarmac temperature and strains in structural members to wind speed and the deflection and rotation of the kilometres of cables and any movement on the bridge decks and towers. These sensors are the early warning system for the bridges, providing the essential information that help the Highways Department to accurately monitor the general health conditions of the bridges, in terms of structural durability, reliability and integrity. The structures have been built to withstand up to a one-minute mean wind speed of 95 metres per second. In 1997 Hong Kong had a direct hit from Typhoon Victor when winds speeds of 110 to 120 kilometres per hour were recorded. However, the highest wind speed on record occurred during Typhoon Wanda in 1962 when a 3-second gust wind speed was recorded at 78.8 metres per second or 284 kilometres per hour. The information from these hundreds of different sensors is transmitted to the data acquisition outstation units. There are three data acquisition outstation units on Tsing Ma bridge, three on Ting Kau and two on the Kap Shui Mun. The computing powerhouse for these systems is in the administrative building used by the Highways Department in Tsing Yi. The local central computer system provides data collection control, post-processing, transmission and storage. The global system is used for data acquisition and analysis, assessing the physical conditions and structural functions of the bridges and for integration and manipulation of the data acquisition, analysis and assessing processes. A 5-span cable-stayed bridge, the Rion-Antirion Bridge, is currently under construction in Greece. The detailed design of the Stonecutters Bridge in Hong Kong, a world record 1018 metres main span cable-stayed bridge has started.
Category:Bridges in Hong Kong This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Ting Kau Bridge".
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