Deltaport Causeway Overpass: How to Construct a Complex Bridge Overpass on a Narrow Causeway in Challenging Soil Conditions

The Deltaport Causeway Overpass in Vancouver B.C. was the centerpiece of a $45 million upgrade of the transportation infrastructure at Canada’s busiest container port terminal. The project included the design and construction of a curved overpass located on a narrow causeway in an area of highly sensitive soils. The aim of the project was to improve vehicle access to the terminal by separating road and railway traffic at a critical bottleneck junction, and to contribute an additional 200,000 container units of annual capacity at the port. This paper describes the technical challenges and the engineering solutions that were used to design the structures to accommodate the tight geometric constraints of the site while ensuring minimal impact to terminal operations. The key technical challenges included: 1. The design of very slender bridge columns due to the close proximity of the rail tracks. The innovative design used small-diameter reinforced concrete columns with an externally-bonded fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) wrap. The FRP wrap was designed to confine the concrete core, and ensure the columns had sufficient ductility to meet the structural design capacity; 2. The design of expanded-base concrete ‘Franki’ piles founded within a zone of stone-column ground improvement. Franki piles were the preferred piling system because the depth to bedrock precluded the installation of deep-pile foundations. The Franki piles were constructed by driving a zero-slump concrete mix out the bottom of a steel casing to form the load-bearing compression and tension bulbs; 3. The design of a state-of-the-art lightweight-fill solution for the bridge-approach embankments using expanded polystyrene (EPS) blocks, aka “geofoam”. The lightweight properties of EPS allowed the approaches to be constructed at a relatively shallow depth, and limited the weight applied to the load-sensitive foundation soils.

• Record URL:
  http://www.tac-atc.ca/sites/default/files/conf_papers/culpans_-_deltaport_causeway_overpass_-_how_to_construct_a_complex_bridge_overpass.pdf
• 
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Association of Canada (TAC)

  401-1111 Prince of Wales Drive
  Ottawa, Ontario  Canada 
• Authors:
  • Culpan, S
  • Jiang, J
• Conference:
  • TAC 2017: Investing in Transportation: Building Canada's Economy - - 2017 Conference and Exhibition of the Transportation Association of Canada
• Publication Date: 2017

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Pagination: 1 PDF file, 7.4 MB, 18p.
• Monograph Title: TAC 2017: Investing in Transportation: Building Canada's Economy - - 2017 Conference and Exhibition of the Transportation Association of Canada

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bridge piers; Bridges; Causeways; Conferences; Design; Expanded materials; Foundations; Polyvinyl hydrocarbons; Soil stabilization; Support piles
• Geographic Terms: Canada
• ITRD Terms: 3455: Bridge; 3434: Bridge pier; 8018: Canada; 2706: Causeway; 8525: Conference; 9011: Design (overall design); 4502: Expanded material; 3377: Foundation; 3399: Pile; 7422: Polyvinylhydrocarbon; 3689: Soil stabilization
• Subject Areas: Bridges and other structures; Design; Geotechnology; I24: Design of Bridges and Retaining Walls; I42: Soil Mechanics;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01668420
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Transportation Association of Canada (TAC)
• Files: ITRD, TAC
• Created Date: May 3 2018 3:11PM