UK-headquartered specialist engineer CCL has completed Lebanon’s first balanced cantilever bridge spanning 100m over a deep mountain canyon in the Miniyeh-Danniyeh District in the North Governorate of the country.
Commissioned from CCL – which specialises in prestressed and post-tensioned concrete – as an alternative to an earlier steel design judged to be too difficult to build and too expensive to maintain, the Qorsaita Bridge shortens the journey between the towns of Bqarsouna and Qorsaita from 12km to 2.5km.
It also slashes commuting times among 35 local communities for the area’s 100,000 inhabitants, CCL said in a press release today.
Prior to CCL’s involvement, it was to be a steel structure, but the site’s location and geography presented construction difficulties and it was decided that the cost to build and maintain the steel structure was prohibitively expensive.
The Qorsaita Bridge slashes commuting times among 35 local communities for the area’s 100,000 inhabitants (Courtesy of CCL)
So, CCL designed a bespoke, balanced cantilever bridge, engineered using post-tensioned concrete instead of steel, which addressed the logistical and financial challenges.
Using proprietary XM and XF post-tensioning systems and specialist machinery, CCL constructed Qorsaita Bridge using the balanced cantilever segmental method, where the structure is cantilevered from both ends while isolated bridge footings hold the counterweights, which are, in turn, secured using CCL-designed and manufactured bridge bearings.
Single-cell box girder segments were used to form the bridge deck.
Top image: CCL built Qorsaita Bridge using the balanced cantilever segmental method (Courtesy of CCL)
