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Unistress Innovations in Segmental Bridge Work
This new precast segmental bridge on Route 36 over the Shrewsbury River in New Jersey is replacing an obsolete and structurally deficient 75 year old double leaf bascule bridge. This is the main corridor to many of NJ's eastern beaches and the national park Sandy Hook. The new bridge will increase the vertical clearance under the bridge to 65 feet above the water, eliminating traffic problems posed by the existing draw bridge.
Unistress cast 384 superstructure segments and 100 substructure pieces for the bridge columns. “We match-cast these vertically, which is a slightly different procedure", says Steve Cote, Unistress Project manager. "The segments for this project are transported about 45 miles by road from our plant in Massachusetts to the Port of Coeymans,NY, where they are transferred onto barges and shipped down the Hudson River, past New York City, to the bridge site.
“The largest piece we’ve done on this project is 72 tons. That’s 11 feet tall, about 46 feet from wing tip to wing tip, and anywhere from 8 to 10 feet long.”
Unistress always seeks to become closely involved with contractors at an earlier stage in the design-build process. In this way our hard-earned knowledge and experience can be applied to the design of the bridge to avoid conflicts, to improve the efficiency with which it can be constructed and to help reduce costs.
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