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Kingston Bridge, Glasgow
PERI GKB Platform system provides
safe working platform for bridge repairs
Kingston Bridge, close to the centre of Glasgow, is one of the busiest sections of road in Europe carrying more than 180,000 vehicles across the River Clyde everyday.
The bridge was first constructed between 1967 and 1970 and was then the longest pre-stressed concrete bridge in Scotland. Twenty years later, routine monitoring revealed excessive movement in the foundations and sagging in the deck. Remedial work has been ongoing since.
Replacing the main bridge piers and strengthening the main deck with pre-stressing was completed in 2000. In January 2005, an £11.5 million main contract for the third phase was awarded to John Graham Construction (Dromore) to strengthen the Stobcross on-ramp and associated parapets and copes.
As the parapets are 60 feet above the river and with fastmoving traffic, GKB parapet platforms supplied by PERI were used to provide a safe method of working for the removal and recasting of the main span parapet copes on the east side over a length of 600 metres.
With 100 units on site, the parapet work constituted over 75% of the PERI contract, but it was shuttering for a column that had to be totally replaced that made this particular job different.
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Jim Armour
Project Manager
“PERI GKB cantilevered parapet platforms were very fast to erect and most importantly provided a safe working environment for constructing the new copes.”
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Glasgow City Council had opted not to replace the central curved section of the Stobcross on-ramp but to refurbish and strengthen it with additional pre-stress applied by external post-tensioning tendons. Four of its supporting columns were upgraded, but one needed to be completely replaced. The new column was to mirror a column replaced on the off-ramp.
Having an elliptical cross-section, the column twists through 90° so that the top of the column’s widest part is perpendicular to the widest part of the base. It had to be built within the heavy support structure that had been erected around the decaying column and was to stand 12.9 metres high and to have a board-marked finish. Special formwork for the previous twisting column on the off-ramp was no longer available, so the shuttering was again built off-site by the specialist craftsmen in PERI’s fabrication workshop in Rugby.
On site, there simply was not enough room to accommodate VARIO (360mm deep) and its strengthening lattice girder to retain the formwork. So TRIO (120mm deep) was used instead with the extra strengthening built in to the formwork by PERI’s carpenters. The whole box was built in three sections each divided into quadrants. Once on site, the quadrants were lifted into place by crane. Despite its complexities, the job was completed ahead of schedule with the final pour taking place two weeks early, in October 2005. |
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PERI scope UK 01/2006
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