Darlington Upgrade Project – Bridge design for manufacture and assembly

<p>The Darlington Upgrade Project (DUP) consists of the upgrade of approximately 3.3 kilometres of the existing Main South Road forming part of the Adelaide North-South Transport Corridor.</p><p>This paper focusses on the design of the project’s three composite steel box girder bridges and challenges employing the Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DfMA) principles on the bridge superstructures which were constructed on temporary towers in an assembly yard approximately 500 metres from the final bridge position and transported using the Self-Propelled Modular Transporter (SPMT) technology. SPMTs, a first in Australia for bridge application, allows pre- fabrication of the bridge superstructure improving safety for both construction crews and motorists.</p><p>Evaluation of stresses imposed on the superstructure obtained from the real time monitoring instrumentation during installation is also presented.</p>