e-mosty December 2017 MSS and Formwork Travellers | Page 16

2.5.1.2 Design requirements for the MSS construction joints, instead of 1/5 th , considering the concreting span of at 63 m, 58.5 m and finally 54 m. The initial design of the MSS was done considering that the construction joint would be at 1/5 th of the span, with 14 m cantilever ahead of the pier, and the MSS should have a front support on the span pier and a rear support over the cantilever, 63 m behind (Figure 18). These calculations were done taking into consideration the reduction of the MSS length and self-weight as well as corresponding reactions. After a global cost analysis for pre-stressing + concrete + MSS final cost, the client finally decided to use 1/4 th of the span joints and it was achieved a 9 m shorter MSS with 54 m concreting span (Figure ), what became a cheaper global solution to build the viaduct shown in Figure 20. The MSS was then designed with a total length of 148 m considering a concrete span of 63 m (Figure 18). This MSS configuration allowed it to perform 70 m span between concrete piers. Meanwhile, the engineer who designed the bridge performed some calculations using 1/4 th of the span      Figure 18: MSS 148 m long with 63 m concreting span          Figure 19: MSS 139 m long with 54 m concreting span 2.5.1.3 Relevance of the construction joint location The global cost studies made for Viaduct do Engano brought very important conclusions concerning the interaction between the bridge design and the construction equipment design for large span viaducts.     in the end, there was a total save of about 150.000 € to the client. A very important conclusion is that the location of the construction joint may have a big impact on the final bridge cost showing that it is worth giving it high relevance during bridge design. The gain of weight in the MSS steel girder was about 70 tones by lowering its concreting span and consequently reduce the total length of 9 m, what corresponded to around 300.000 €. The increase in pre-stressing steel due to this solution for the whole bridge was only half of that amount but Figure 20: Overall view of the Engano Viaduct with the MSS at the last span 4/2017