BRIDGE DESIGN & ENGINEERING
Bridges provide an attractive opportunity to embed visual identity into the surrounding built and natural landscape. Whilst the complexity of a bridge structure can vary considerably, our team is adept at analysing site constrains to develop value driven solutions that ensure safe passage and optimum movement of traffic
MCL&H works in active partnership with clients to understand their needs and aspirations, so that our solutions make their bridge programmes possible - big and small. We then bring together leading global experts across disciplines to create teams that can deliver world-class bridge engineering anywhere.
Our Approach
A critical challenge in bridge design is developing the right alignment option. The professional and collaborative approach of our team ensures we partner seamlessly to apply advanced technical thinking and sustainable results that enhance community prosperity.Using the latest digital engineering technologies, our experts have led extensive research into the application of state-of-the-art modelling techniques including integrated BIM, virtual reality and augmented reality and automation.
Our bridge solutions extend to a range of bridge types including viaducts, cantilever segmental bridges, steel box and conventional girder bridges, railway under-and-over bridges,
truss bridges, precast segmental bridges, major concrete arch bridges and cable stayed bridges. This capability is
augmented by extensive experience in common deck types such as voided slabs, plank structures, and super-T bridges.
Collaborating to develop connections
Long-span bridges open regions to opportunity and link communities. Arup collaborates with architects, developers and the public sector to shape ambitious, pragmatic and enduring bridges that transform the way people live and work.
We have realised many of the world’s significant bridges. In the 1970s we spanned the Benue River to re-connect the north-east region of Nigeria cut off by annual floods. Since, the Øresund Link, which joins Sweden and Denmark, was completed ahead of schedule and on budget.
Hong Kong’s Stonecutter Bridge, the world’s second longest cable-stayed span, was designed to withstand typhoon winds during construction and operation.
Major bridges today are increasingly sophisticated. We draw on MCL&H’s deep expertise in fundamentals such as wind engineering and seismic design as well as security, lighting, intelligent transport and more.
In a joint venture to design, develop and project-manage the Queensferry Crossing, Scotland’s largest infrastructure project in a generation, our integrated bridge team incorporates diverse skills including project finance, procurement, environmental, marine, geotechnics, landscaping, electrical, and mechanical disciplines.
Specialist capabilities
- Active Transport integration
- Bridge investigations and assessment
- Bridge strengthening
- Design verification and proof checking of rail and road bridges, retaining walls and other structures
- Feasibility studies and toll concessions
- Pavement design
- Precast Construction
- Public transport planning, needs analysis and route selection
- Reinforced concrete and prestressed concrete
- Road Safety Assessments
- Steel and composite steel design
- Strategic and network planning
- Timber design
- Traffic impact analysis and traffic management
Realising landmark bridge designs
MCL&H brings aesthetic integrity and technical virtuosity in bridge design within reach for our clients.
We often realise cutting-edge design for footbridges, such as Singapore’s much-awarded Helix Bridge. It mimics the double-helix structure of DNA and was made possible by an original structural solution modelled using MCL&H’s 3D software. In this virtual environment, we developed a design that achieved both stunning effect and surprising strength with efficient use of steel.
Innovating to improve infrastructure
MCL&H’s drive to advance bridge engineering also shapes our bridge solutions for highways and rail. For example, our Eight-Hour Bridge Initiative avoids the major disruption wrought by standard construction. We set a benchmark in concrete design with our Medway Viaduct for High Speed 1, which achieves a delicate profile in harmony with its surroundings despite being one of the longest concrete bridges built for the demands of high-speed rail.
Our expertise also helps clients get the most from existing bridges. We manage inspection and testing regimes for bridges from New York, USA, to Queensland, Australia. In the Netherlands, we are refurbishing eight critical long-span bridges to extend their useful life by 30 years.
