TAIWAN
A
PRESTRESSED
concrete bridge,
almost one kilometre long, is now being constructed over the Tamshui River in Taiwan to link Taipei with the suburban town of Panchiao.
The bridge is designed by the staff of the Taiwan Highway Bureau, under Mr. Hu Mai-Juang, chief engineer, to remove a huge traffic bottleneck created by an existing narrow suspen- sion bridge which is reached by way of the winding streets of downtown Taipei.
A traffic survey carried out before plans for the new bridge were prepar- ed showed that the existing bridge carried 6,000 ADT fast traffic and
CONSTRUCTION OF HWA KIANG BRIDGE
by H.P. Lee and J. H. Cheng
Load and
12,000 ADT slow traffic. speed of vehicles on the bridge was limited to ensure safety over a rail crossing, which aggravated the traffic conditions.
Thus the Hwa Kiang Bridge scheme was launched on a new site at the junction of the Hsin Tien River and Tamshui River. One end of the Hwa Kiang Bridge is at Shuang Yuan Dike on the Taipei side and the other at a proposed dike at Chiangtsetsui.
Total length of the new bridge is 916 metres. It has 28 spans eight
Precast, prestressed concrete girder being placed on a 39.5 metre span
Far East Architect & Builder March, 1968
spans of 39.5 metres and 20 spans of 30 metres. The width of the bridge is 15 metres, with two fast lanes in the centre portion and two slow lanes on the side designed to the same standard as the fast lanes to enable further conversion into a four-lane highway.
The main girders for the 39.5 metre spans are of precast prestressed concrete, supporting a deck of rein- forced concrete slabs. Cantilever box-type prestressed slabs were adopted for the 30 metre spans. All piers are of solid reinforced concrete.
Of the 29 foundations. 12 use hollow prestressed concrete piles with a cross-section of 60 cm. x 60 cm. and a length of 18 or 23 metres. The other 17 foundations use a reverse circulation method to drill holes for casting concrete piles in situ. Eight piles are provided for each founda- tion. There are two sizes of diameter for the drilled holes: 102 cm. (40 in.) and 127 cm. (50in.); the depth is 30 metres.
Reverse Circulation Piling
On the Panchiao side of the bridge a new 3.53 kilometre highway will be constructed with a total width of 15 metres. It will have two 7.5 metre lanes for fast vehicles, two 3 metre lanes for slow vehicles and an 0.75 metre shoulder on both sides.
A feature of the bridge construc-
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