Paper No.

524 DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF PRE-TENSIONED SUTLEJ BRIDGE IN PUNJAB

V.N. HEGGADE*, R.K. MEHTA** & R. PRAKASH***
SYNOPSIS Currently in vogue fast track construction has encouraged the adoption of pre-tension technology for urban flyovers. After having successfully experimented pretensioned spans for River Bridge upto span of 30 m in Hadakiya Bridge in Gujarat, the technology was first time extended upto 35m spans for Beas and Sutlej river bridges in Punjab. The inherent peculiarities such as single stage prestressing, transfer of prestress through bond between concrete and cables by obviation of grouting and sheathing ducts, tensioning of tendons before the concrete is cast and transfer of prestress after the attainment of required strength in concrete derive certain advantages in favour of pretensioning in terms of durability, quantity reduction, construction speed, design and construction expediency. However, in the Indian scenario there are no codal guidelines accounting for these peculiarities for bridges. The enumeration with illustration is intended to provide basis for formulating guidelines for pretensioning in bridge building. The Paper also deliberates on optimization of beam cross section in relation to lateral stability during transfer of prestress accounting for casting imperfections, handling and erection of beams before the beams are transversly stiffened by deck slab which may help the code makers to have fresh look on the guidelines for lateral stability of the prestressed beams.

1. DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT The project consisted of design and construction of highlevel bridge across the river Sutlej including approaches and guide-bunds connecting Nakodar and Jagraon. The construction of the bridge facilitates in reduction of the distance between the towns by 50 km, reduction in traffic of NH-1 due to traffic from Rajkot, Maler Kotla and Jalandar and reduction of traffic in the city of Ludhiana. The bridge proper, 810 m long between the inner faces of dirt walls is made up of 23 spans of 35.20 m, while the approaches of lengths 1369 m and 1115 m on Nakodar side and Jagraon side respectively flanked the bridge proper. The main flow is confined and guided through the bridge linear waterway without causing damage to the bridge and its approaches by provision of divergent guide-bunds along the river flow, upstream and downstream on both the banks. The superstructure of 35.20 m span bridge consisted of 6nos. precast pretensioned concrete beams spaced at 2.15 m centres and cast-in-situ RCC deck slab. The width of the carriageway has been kept 7.50 m flanked either side by 2 m wide cycle track making the total width of the bridge deck to be 12.95 m including crash barriers and steel railings. The vehicular way is separated from cycle ways by crash barriers while cyclists are protected by steel railings from being toppled over. The beams were simply supported on POT-cum-PTFE bearings having slab steel expansion joints between the spans. The abutments were solid non spill-through types to go with same family of plate type piers flaring towards pier cap in the direction
* ** ***

of river flow (transverse) to minimise the size of the RCC cap. The piers were founded on 6 m dia well foundations while the abutments were resting on 7 m dia wells. The detail of the general features of the bridge is given in Fig. 1. 2. DETAILS OF THE CONTRACT Punjab Infrastructure Development Board, on behalf of Punjab PWD provided developmental outline proposal with the condition that the contractor should submit his own proposal with the approximate dimensions of various components of the bridge structure to fairly establish that the technical requirement were met with. The tender proposal of the contractors were to include certain obligatory conditions such as length of the bridge, approaches and guide-bunds, carriageway and cycle track width requirements, linear water way and vertical clearance and type of foundations, and formation levels. The departmental outline proposal had the span of 40.50 m and the variation in span length was permitted up to 20 per cent. The contractor had to give detailed design calculations and drawings in support of his proposal after the award of the work to comply with the design requirements stipulated in tender documents. Qualified engineers supplemented by independent quality control consultant in line with ISO requirements were supervising the execution of the job. Some of the salient design parameters specified in the tender documents are as below: River hydraulics

Head of Technical Mgt. Gammon India Ltd., Mumbai Dy. Manager (Tech) E-mail : vnh@gammonindia.com Project Manager Written comments on this Paper are invited and will be received upto 30th Sept., 2006.

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Fig. 1. General arrangement of Sutlej bridge

Design discharge : 18912 Cumecs Maximum mean velocity : 4.87 m/sec High flood level : RL 227.868 Depth of water at lowest : 3.0m water level Scour level : RL 204.255 Seismicity Seismic zone : IV Seismic coefficient : 0075G Permissible increase in SBC : 25 per cent Permissible increase in stress : As per IRC: 6 Soil parameter (dry) : 1.8 t/m3 (angle of internal friction) : 300 (Friction between soil and face): 200 SBC for well foundation : 75 t/m2 gross at founding level. Material For condition of exposure : Moderate Concrete grades For pretensioned beams : M40 For well foundation : M30 Reinforcements : HYSD bars conforming to IS:1786

Loading Live load Footpath live load Cycle track loading Miscellaneous Type of bearings Wearing coat

:IRC 70R single lane or Class-A 2 lanes : As per IRC: 6 : As per IRC: 6 : POT and POT cum PTFE : 25 mm thick mastic asphalt over 40 mm thick bituminous concrete : As per departmental drawing : STAAD III Release 22.0

Cycle track and parapet

Software package

3. CONCEPTUALISATION In many of the river bridges in Punjab upto 45 m spans, the slab girder system with cast insitu post-tensioned beams are successfully adopted. Beyond 45 m, upto even 65 m cast insitu box girders are adopted. However, recently in vogue fast track

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construction conceptualisation facilitates expeditious construction. The conventional cast insitu construction and its expediencies like staging/trestle support for superstructure in the riverbed is not only time-consuming, also susceptible to flood damages, consequently reducing productive working period in a season. In the recent years, the flyovers in urban areas especially in metropolitan cities are realised by precast construction. The various options in segmental and non-segmental technology is exploited in precast construction using post-tensioning or pre-tensioning. In case of Sutlej Bridge, among the various options available, finally the competition was between post-tensioned versus pre-tensioned beams. In this particular context, pretensioned beams had certain advantages and also peculiarities vis--vis its counterpart. The inherent peculiarities such as single-stage prestressing, transfer of prestress through bond between concrete and cables by obviation of grouting, sheathing ducts, tensioning of tendons before the concrete is cast and transfer of prestress after the attainment of required strength in concrete, warrants specially designed casting bed which should be capable of imparting required quantum of prestressing force. These peculiarities derive certain advantages in favour of pretensioned beams in terms of durability, quantity reduction, construction speed, design and construction expediency. As the pretensioned girders are manufactured in factory like environment where the bonding between concrete and tendons is direct due to the absence of grouting inside the sheathing duct, the better durability and corrosion resistance is achieved. The absence of the cables in the web and the elimination of end blocks and blisters to house the anchorages, allows the section optimisation from strength criteria alone. This helps in reducing concrete quantities rendering in lighter beams, facilitating in attenuation in cost of handling, transportation and erection. The value engineering carried out during conceptualisation stage for Sutlej Bridge revealed that for the same span of 35.40 m and number of beams of six on the cross section (Fig. 2), the quantities for pre-tensioned girders are substantially lesser than post-tensioned beams.

From the design angle, pre-tensioning uses the prestress efficiently on smaller sections with higher eccentricities, reduces the immediate losses like friction, wobble and slip, reduces initial mass on substructure and foundation due to seismic and reduces steel congestion in end blocks and anchorage zones. Construction-wise, the activities associated with post-tensioning such as threading of cable inside the sheathing, grouting operation and number of prestressing operations is eliminated. Though the pretensioned technology has been used extensively for flyovers and ROBs for the span range of 18 to 22 m, for the first time for bridge across river Surajbari in Gujarat the technology was adopted with 26 m spans in India, which withstood the otherwise catastrophic earthquake in Gujarath on 26th January 2001. Perhaps, it was but natural for Sutlej and Beas Bridges in Punjab to extend the span length up to 35 m as a part of evolutionary process, on the basis of experience gained through the fast track flyovers and Surajbari Bridge. 4. FOUNDATIONS Before the award of the job, as a part of tender documents a thorough soil investigation was carried out by the department to arrive at soil characteristics, soil bearing capacity and founding levels along the bridge alignment (Fig. 3). Overall seven numbers of boreholes were drilled for depths up to 40 m and standard penetration tests were performed as per IS:2131 to arrive at N values. Silt factors were calculated on the basis of particle size distribution following the principles of Laceys silt factor. On the basis of soil investigation, the subsoil strata were divided into 3 distinct zones. Around 12 m below the ground level along the alignment a silty clay strata of average band depth of around 12 m, designated as Zone-2 was sandwiched between sandy strata designated as Zone-1 and Zone-3. Average value of sandy strata was around 340 while clayey strata had undrained shear strength of around 1.50 kg/cm2 (Cu). On the basis of 75 mm maximum settlement criteria, the bearing pressure at founding level in sandy strata after passing through the clayey strata was specified as 75T/m2 on conservative side. The silt factor for Zone-1 varied from 0.62 to 1.07 while for Zone-3 the same was ranging between 0.35 to 1.01. The design scour depths near the piers and abutments were evaluated on the basis of maximum discharge, river regime and velocity of the river. In all 22 numbers of piers were supported on 32 m deep and 6 m dia well foundations (Fig. 4), consisting of 2.1 m deep kerb, 1.5 m deep well cap. The steining thickness of 1.05 m is tapered to 0.75 m at scour depth of around 18 m, below the top of the well cap.

Fig. 2. Pre-tensioning vis-a-vis post-tensioning VE for Sutlej bridge

The thickness of the steining was decided by using the relationship given in IRC:78 to facilitate smooth sinking by gravity without excessive Kent ledge and damage to steining

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Fig. 3. Bore hole details along bridge alignment

Fig. 4. Typical well foundation for Sutlej

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due to differential earth pressure, sand blow and sudden drop, etc. it was ensured that the stresses at different levels of steining during service conditions and construction stage were within permissible limits. As the well foundations were to be plugged on soil, the grip for side earth resistance below the scour level was ensured to be of the maximum depth of scour below the design scour. As normally, well cannot be sunk to the precise verticality, the design catered for the cumulative moment effect of 1 in 80 tilts and 150 mm shift apart from accounting for other severe load combination. The side earth resistance was calculated by Bombay Committee Method with the passive resistance factor of safeties of 2.0 and 1.6 for normal and seismic conditions respectively. The well cap was designed and detailed as uniformly thick plate for the external reactions and reaction components at the bottom of the pier with boundary condition as partially fixed at supports on well steining all around. The river bed level varied between RL 222 m to 225.50 m having deep channel between the pies P3 and P10 with the low water level being at RL 223.723 m. Up to the deep channel i.e. P10, the service road was made up to A/R and wells up to P10 were started simultaneously. After the monsoon was over, on recession of floods, the service road was made on A/L side and with the help of the site made temporary bridge between P8 and P10; the wells were tackled in the channel. Initially, the well sinking was planned with four cranes. However, the sandwiched clayey strata necessitated overall eight cranes, as the sinking through the same was consuming almost 7 to 15 days per metre depth. Most of the well foundations were constructed conventionally on land, barring a couple in deep channels, which warranted sand islands. In the conventional construction (Photo 1.), the cutting edge fabricated of mild steel was laid on the ground level and curb with required reinforcements was concreted. The material inside was gradually scooped out with grabs to facilitate sinking under its own weight. As the sinking proceeded, the steining was built up in lifts, normally of around 2.5 m to further the sinking due to increase in weight.

Since the bed profile was having large variations, almost all wells were required to be sunk up to 5 m below the ground level (Photo 2.) and 3.0 m below the water level. The circular cofferdam except a small flare to accommodate piers was cast up to water level.

Photo 2. Cofferdam with flare to accomodate pier

Had the well cap level been fixed at ground level or LWL, the job could have been completed three to four months earlier and substantial additional expenditure as a consequence of taking well cap below ground level could have been saved. As the cofferdam was quite thin compared to steining, the non-availability of required weight hampered the sinking. This called for the creation of the sump below the founding level to facilitate gradual sinking. At P16 location, the sump required was 3 m to enable last 1.80 m sinking. In the process the well jumped and sunk by 3.70 m at one go rendering the steining top almost 8 m (Photo 3.) below bed level.

Photo 3. Construction of well cap below GL

To raise the steining to the required level, the extensive shoring, continuous dewatering, protection with wire crated boulders, etc. had to be resorted to apart from stabilising the 6 m deep false walls by adequate structural bracings. To circumvent the creation of sump to sink last 1.2 m depth at P3 location, the other measures such as air jetting, water jetting and Kent ledge on top of false wall were attempted. Finally after 4 months, the combined effect of 450 t Kent ledge, 5 m excavations outside the well and dewatering yielded the well to the required depth.

Photo 1. Curb reinforcements & cutting edge

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Though the aggregate sinking of 854 m was accomplished in a short period of 620 days, the good engineering practice of fixing the well cap at LWL/bed level, would have reduced the sinking duration, efforts and its financial ramification quite considerably. At the every alternative well location, after reaching the founding level, the soil investigation was carried out up to 9 m depths to deduce C and values to confirm the soil bearing capacities. Bottom plugging was carried out by shifting the concrete from batching plants through buckets and placing by tremie pipes. After having done the recuperation test for soundness of plug after 14 days, the sand filling and intermediate plugs were expedited. With the help of irrecoverable shuttering supported on precast beams and cofferdam, each well cap was completed within five to six days including reinforcement fixing and concreting. 5. PIERS The RCC piers were of wall type flaring from well cap to accommodate the pier cap, with the concrete characteristic strength of 35 N/mm2. Though the grade of the concrete is same as that of used for well cap, the mix had to be made little richer with higher workability in order to enable smooth placement of concrete for the thin sections. A system of formwork consisting of steel channels and shuttering was used in piers, which was concreted in two stages (Photo 4).

to be made up of 35.40 m long precast pretensioned beams, transversely held by 200 mm thick RCC deck slab. Though the design-wise and from aesthetical considerations, the intermediate diaphragms could have been avoided, the same has been provided to satisfy contractual requirement which are in fact structurally redundant. As there are no design criteria laid down in IRC standards for pretensioning, invariably IRC:18 meant for post-tensioned construction is adopted and insisted upon, for pretension construction also. The present post-tensioned Code IRC:18 prescribes working stress method of design and permissible stresses seem to be on highly conservative side. The comparable AASHTO-94, the standard that is also based on allowable stress method (ASD) design, allows at least 33 per cent higher flexural stresses during transfer and 25 per cent higher flexural stresses during service condition. To worsen the matter further, the IRC stipulates 20 per cent additional time dependent losses, 3 times 1000 h relaxation losses, minimum 80 per cent of characteristic strength at full transfer of prestress, those perhaps are rationalised for post-tensioned construction on the basis of past experience, where prestress transfer is feasible in stages. Universally, though generally there are no separate codes for post-tensioning and pre-tensioning, the prestressing code itself give separate design parameters such as time dependent loss parameters, permissible stresses and transmission length for pre-tensioning, etc. In view of this the author had suggested to IRC Code Making Committee to make IRC: 18 a common code for prestressed concrete road bridges common for both pretensioned and post tensioned concrete with the separate design parameters wherever relevant and applicable, which is yet to be taken into cognisance. Selection of the beam cross section for long span pretensioned girders warrants experience in field supervision, apart from theoretical aspects of prestressed concrete. It is expected that the optimum concrete section that is materially influenced by prestressing force and loading, is light for handling and transportation, prestressing operation and concreting friendly. The sizes of bottom and top flanges, the depth and width of web are required to be optimised on the basis of above constructability issues. The pressure line (resultant of stresses) in the prestressed concrete flexural member shifts its location within the section upon the application of external loads. In simply supported beams at the midspan for service condition, the stress at the bottom-fibre is zero, i.e. no tension allowed as per codal provision. At the midspan pressure line is above the CG of the section, warranting the CG of the prestressing force at a distance equivalent to moment divided by prestressing force. Thus to cater for the compressive force by virtue of pressure line above the CG of section at the midspan, the top flange requirement is high, whereas nearly zero-stressed bottom fibre

Photo 4. Shuttering Arrangement for Pier

The height of the first lift was 3.25 m and after concreting the first lift, the balance second lift shuttering was fixed immediately in 3 to 5 hours. The grout leakage through the joints of shuttering was totally avoided by judicious planning during the fabrication of shuttering such as overlapping of plates, etc. The concreting for each lift was carried out in continuous operation without the cold joint. By virtue of large shuttering and minimum number of lifts in concreting, the surface texture of the concrete pier has been of excellent quality. 6. SUPERSTRUCTURE 6.1 Choice of Cross Section Due to the obvious advantages enumerated in Conceptualisation Para, the an isotropic deck was considered

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does not require flange, apart from accommodating cables. Towards the supports as the moments are gradually reduced to zero, the CG of the prestressing force can be judiciously located to be concentric to avoid any requirement of flanges. However, at the intervening stage before the application of imposed loads including live load, the section has to store large prestressing force at bottom fibre, which would be neutralised on application of external intermittent loads latter, bringing the bottom fibre stress to zero. The above calls for widening of the bottom flange and in fact decides the width. Thus an I section where the pressure line can move larger distance without the tensile stresses is chosen for pretensioned girders. While the span to depth ratio ranges between 16 to 22, the web thickness of 150 mm is considered to be adequate for normal I shaped beam for honeycomb-free concreting. However, in case of Sutlej Bridge as the vertical clearance was not a constraint, the lavish span to depth ratio of 14 was adopted to reduce the prestressing strands with the web thickness of 200 mm as constrained by IRC:18, though the same was not required by design and constructability angles. The decision on the width of the top flange is very crucial as the extremely narrow top flanges may buckle the precast beams during side shifting, transportation and handling. The Indian Codes categorise the beams as slender beams when the span to top flange width ratio exceeds 60 or depth to flange width ratio exceeds 4 and specifies reduction in permissible stresses and adequate temporary restraints during handling and erection from lateral stability considerations. Normally, for the simply supported beams, the span to depth ratio of 15 is considered to be optimum, and when the same is related to depth to width ratio of 4, the span to width ratio works out to be 60. In Sutlej and Beas bridges, 35 m long beams with 2.5 m depth was provided with 0.70 m top flange to keep the weight of the girder to minimum with span to flange width ratio of 50 and depth to width ratio of 3.57 satisfying both the considerations given in Indian Codes for slenderness. The stretching the slenderness to codal limits to keep the weight minimum, was considered to be very bold especially after the classical beam collapses of Roop Narayan Bridge on National Highway No.6, where the span to width ratio 50 followed the depth to width ratio of 3 (safer than Sutlej Bridge). In his paper A study of the failures during launching of precast prestressed concrete beams of the Roop Narayan Bridge on National Highway No. 6, while deliberating on Guyons contention that for the beams depths of 5 to 8 ft., the thickness of the flanges should never be less than 0.1 of the depth and width of the flanges should not be less than 0.40 of the depth for symmetrical I-beams, Mr. Seetharaman through his investigation concludes that the span to depth ratio should be 15 and depth to width ratio should be less than 3 for transverse rigidity of precast beams. Thus the chosen beam section for Sutlej called for thorough investigation and justification vis--vis lateral stability during transfer of

prestress, handling and erection of the beams before the beams are transversely rigidised by deck slab. The lateral stability of Sutlej beams during handling and erection was ensured by extensive investigations on the basis of special report lateral stability of long prestressed concrete beams by Robert F. Mait in PCI Journal Jan-Feb 1989. The improper lifting hook placement and casting imperfection cause the beam to be tilted at an initial angle 1 near the lifting hook location about the roll axis (Fig. 5). Normally the casting imperfections considered 1:1920 in Sutlej gets manifested itself by way of curvature in plan of prestressed beam after detensioning. Lifting hook placement tolerance was allowed to be 6.35 mm during casting. The above tilting of beam induces the lateral deflection about weak axis of the beam. Because of the transfer of prestress, there is already tension at the top fibre of the beam for which the tensile stress caused about the weak axis by the component of the self weight due to tilt gets added which needs to be within the permissible limits and in fact decides the maximum tilt ( max) to which the beam can be subjected to. After the tilting is initiated by the initial angle 1 near the support locations, the beam achieves its equilibrium with a uniform lift angle (shown at midspan) with CG of the mass of the deflected beam right under the roll axis. In the figure as Zo approaches Yr, the beam starts rotating and becomes totally unstable even without the initial imperfection and without improper location of lifting hook. Thus the safety against the lateral buckling is a measure of Yr vis--vis Zo and is called gross factor of safety (FOS = Yr/ Zo) for a perfect beam without imperfection. If one has to account for imperfections causing the initial angle q1 and limiting the maximum lift to max, the factor of safety reduces to .

However, it is more logical to deduce the factor of safety against lateral stability by dividing maximum possible tilt max with that of equilibrium rotation at midspan. Moving the lifting position inwards improves the factor of safety against lateral stability by virtue of reduced deflections caused by rotations about the weak axis. However, it has to be ensured that the stresses are within the limits in overhang portions. Though the very slender cross sections from lateral stability considerations was chosen in Sutlej Bridge, the same could be successfully executed by adhering to the specified casting imperfections, lifting hook location tolerance, etc. during execution. The details of the same are given in Fig. 5. Unlike in post-tensioning, in case of pre-tensioning as the strands are bonded during the transfer of prestress, the

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Fig. 5. Laterial stability of long prestressed concrete beams with factor of safeties

beams cannot buckle which was also taken into cognisance during lateral stability investigations. The lateral stability guidelines for precast beams given in Indian Codes for prestressed concrete members are similar to that of for RCC and steel beams in terms of span to depth ratio and depth to top flange width ratio. However, in the case of prestressed beams, the aspect of prestressing is a new variable and as such the same guidelines may not be applicable for prestressed beams. In view of this the factor of safeties enumerated above may be included for ensuring the lateral stability of beams during shifting, transportation and erection of prestressed, precast beams in the prestressed concrete codes. 6.2. Design of Superstructure The superstructure consists of six numbers of precast pretensioned girders spaced at 2.15 m centre to centre with 250 mm thick end diaphragms to support 200 mm thick cast-in-site RCC deck cantilevering by 1.10 m from the centre line of external girders on either side. The pretensioned girders in the casting yard were specified to be prestressed after 24 hours when the strength of the concrete was 31 MPa, while the concrete grade for the beams were M 40. The precast girders were transported to site and placed on bearings followed by casting of the end diaphragm. The RCC deck slab was cast on formwork supported on girders and the

same was removed after the sufficient attainment of strength in the deck. Thereafter, for the further loads such as weight of crash barrier, wearing coat, railings and live load, etc. the structure was assured to be a composite section. The effect of differential shrinkage and temperature variation were also considered in the design. For finding all the longitudinal beam reaction components, the grillage analysis (Fig. 6) was used for superimposed dead loads and live loads, the structure was idealised as a grid of longitudinal and transverse members. The composite girders consisting of precast beam and deck slab was descretised to be placed along the axis of the girder while deck slab and deck slab with diaphragm was placed as transverse grillage members along the line of each of end diaphragm in the structure. The slab acts to transmit applied loads to beams by spanning transversely between them, apart from providing means for load sharing between longitudinal beams. Therefore transverse members having slab properties were provided to reflect the load sharing characteristics of the deck. For the application of the loads due to railing, the dummy longitudinal members with negligible section properties were provided at the edges and transverse grillage members were continued to connect them. The flaring properties of precast beams at the end for the distance of 2.65 m from 200 mm to 300 mm thick has been accounted for in the descretisation. The grillage analysis results especially for superimposed

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the prestressing moments near the simply supported ends need to be reduced as the moments induced by self weight and external loads gradually diminishes towards the supports from midspan. The same is achieved by preventing the portion of the tendons from bonding, thereby preventing from stressing the concrete at the ends. Normally, the bond prevention is achieved by provision of tight-fitting split plastic tube or heavy paper or cloth tape. However, for the accurate placement of tubes after the pre-tensioning a 20 mm dia PVC tubes were used in Sutlej Bridge as bond prevention media at the ends (Fig. 7). The length of bond prevention has to be deduced after catering for transmission length required to develop full tension in the tendons.
Fig. 6. Grillage idealisation for deck slab with girders

dead loads and live loads were compared with Classical Little and Morrice method for verification, which were found to be in agreement to a large extent as illustrated in Table 1. TABLE 1. GRILLAGE ANALYSIS METHOD
VIA-A-VIS

LITTLE & MORRICE

When the pretensioning tendon is stressed, the diameter of the tendon is reduced due to poisons effect and the original diameter is regained after the release of prestress. In fact this property is responsible for bonding pretensioned wires to concrete. After the detensioning, the stress in the wire at the end is zero and maximum after certain length, which is called transmission length. The Hoyer was the first German Engineer who developed the theory of transmission length due to the formation of wedge shape in prestressing tendon where the stress gradually decreases from maximum to zero with the increase in diameter of tendon, which is popularly referred as Hoyers effect. The transmission length depends upon number of variables, the most important being the strength of the concrete at the time of transfer, the size of the tendon, friction between the tendon and concrete and initial and effective stresses in steel. As per the guidelines of IS:1343, 30 times the diameter of the tendon for strands i.e. around 500 mm was considered as transmission length in the said bridge. It is interesting to note that the stress variation over transmission length being parabolic, 80 per cent of the maximum prestress is developed over half the transmission length, and as such half of the transmission length was projected beyond bearing supports for simply supported girders. 7. PRE-TENSIONING The bridge of 23 spans consisted of 138 nos, 35.2 m long, 68 tonne weighing, prestressed beams with the depth of 2.50 m. Each beam consisted of 34 nos. of strands (tendons) conforming to class-2 of IS:14268 with UTS of 1900 N/mm2. Each strand of 15.2 mm dia was made up of 7 wires with 6 wires surrounding the centre wire configuration resulting in enhanced bond characteristics due to Hoyers effect, with net strand cross sectional area of 140 mm2. The key factors in the choice and capacity of pretensioning bed was the availability of time for precasting girders and the economical considerations. The cost benefit

The stresses in bottom and top fibres of the beam before and after the composite action were ensured to be within the permissible limits as specified in IRC:18 at various temporary and service stages as tabulated in Table 2. TABLE 2. SUMMARY OF STRESSES AT MID SPAN

In case of the pretensioned girders with straight tendons,

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Fig. 7. Debonding arrangement for stands at the ends

analysis for various capacities of long line pre tensioning bed was carried out as per the Table 3. Since the expenditure on three beams casting was found to be economically optimum, saving almost 15 months, the bed for casting three beams was chosen, making perhaps the longest pretensioning bench in the country with the length of 122.5 m, for stressing 115 m long strands (Fig. 8). TABLE. 3. COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS OF PRETENSIONING BENCH

The largest long line prestressing bed had its own share of problems. Each strand was to be stressed to 21 tonnes, warranting the capacity of the pretensioning bench to (2x34) = 714 tonnes. It is essential to design the pretensioning bed to additional 20 per cent capacity as the prestressing force on reaction abutment (Fig. 9) will increase due to long line bench effect after casting of concrete, due to shrinkage and temperature variation between the duration of casting of concrete and detensioning. Prior to detensioning in the casting yard, the strands can be stressed up to 0.80 UTS. Due to the shrinkage of concrete clubbed with reduction in temperature, shrinks the concrete along with the strands in the bonded length thereby elongating and inducing further stress in the unbonded length. If the increase in stress in unbonded length before

Fig. 8. Pre tensioning bench of 122.5 m, for stressing 15 m long strands

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shuttering face, the reinforcement cages fabricated in three pieces of 11 m each were shifted to casting bed by hydro crane. The cages were suitably stiffened by diagonal bars during transportation, which were removed once placed in position in casting bed. HT strands were cut to 115 m length and stacked over raised platform along the line of casting bed. While opening the coil, HT strands were passed through water tank to remove protective coating. The cables were threaded manually inserting through 20 mm dia PVC pipes of required length meant for debonding. After fixing up the anchorages, the cables were prestressed from stressing end in predetermined sequence. The debonding pipes were positioned and sealed with epoxy and tapes as per the drawing after the stressed cables were anchored. The other face of the shuttering was then lifted up and connected to already erect face by 16 mm through bolts. The gaps were filled with foams for preventing leakage and one end of the shuttering was provided with 50 mm wooden packing and thermo coal to facilitate easy removal of shuttering after concreting.
Fig. 9. Cross section of Bulkhead

detensioning is beyond UTS, the strands in some cases may even start snapping, as happened in Sutlej Bridge. The increase in the stress of the unbonded tendon is directly proportionate to the ratio of the length of the embedded strands to that of total strand length. This is also affected by curing time and is more severe when the ambient temperature during stripping is low. The key decisive factors in the choice of formwork for pretensioned girders were: (a) High resistance to damage due to rough handling. (b) The precise dimension of the panels to fit together to form a large unit with ease. (c) Cleaning, setting, adjusting and handling ease. (d) The ability of erecting one side independent of other. (e) The ability to withstand the form and other vibrations. (f) Rigid structural soffit form to secure and hold the side form without movement during concreting. (g) The minimum joints, which can be tightly sealed to avoid leakage and bleeding. The shuttering panels of 3 m length were erected using 8-ton capacity hydro crane, which was supported on ground anchors by turnbuckles. After erection of one face of shuttering the alignments to the precision could be carried out by adjustments of turnbuckles. After the erection of one face of shuttering the alignment to the precision could be carried out by adjustment of turnbuckles. After the erection of one

The concrete produced by batching plant of capacity 30 m3/hr as per the design mix (Table 4.) transported through a lead of 100 m by tractor trolley. As the concrete was to be placed at height of 3.5 m from supply level a mechanical mode was devised for placement. The device consisted of an automatic conveyor designed and fabricated (Fig. 10) at site in such way that it could move on a track line parallel to pretensioning bed, receive concrete from trolleys up to 0.50 m3 at a time, carry the concrete through conveyor for 3.50 m height and deliver to tremie for placement through funnel. The device could be electrically operated by operator seated on it, and reduced the concreting cycle to 2 hours from manual concreting cycle of 5 hours. The concrete compaction was achieved by poker and shutter vibrators. TABLE 4. DESIGN MIX DETAILS

The transfer of prestress was induced by cutting strand by acetylene torch in a pre-decided sequence after concrete achieved the strength of 31 MPa. The best cycle time achieved in the beam casting was 66 hours though on a average time

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longitudinal trolleys. To facilitate the movement of bed gantries and longitudinal trolleys, the track line is laid on wooden sleepers at 0.70 m c/c as per railway specification over well-prepared compacted embankments. The motorised trolleys were moved up to the span where beam was to be erected. The gantries were used at the location to lift, side shift and lowering of beam on pedestal as depicted in the Fig. 12 & 13. The lifting was done with the aid of 750 mm stroke hydraulic jacks and 16 m long suspenders. The side shifting was done using the crab assembly and winches set on top of gantries. Prior to the lifting of the beams, the bearings were fixed at the soffit of beams with sleeves already embedded during concreting. The surface irregularities were dealt by application of 2 mm thick epoxy over the bearings. The lowered beams were rested at about 20 mm above the pedestal and the recess was grouted using non-shrink cement grout. Till the time the recess was grouted and end diaphragms were cast, the beams were placed on wooden sleepers and held by temporary bracings. On an average 5 hours cycle was comfortably achieved as shown in the Table 6. with the progress of 3 beams per day on a regular basis. TABLE 6. CYCLE TIME FOR BEAM ERECTION

Fig. 10. Mechanical device for concrete placement

cycle was 72 hours with the individual activity break-up as shown in Table 5. TABLE 5. CYCLE TIME FOR BEAM CASTING

Despite the unforeseen impediments like non-availability of stacking facilities, repairs of shuttering panels, maintenance of bed alignment, and rain, etc. the casting of 138 nos. of beams were completed in 320 days. The pretensioning can be done either by stressing each tendon individually or all together at a time. As the stressing individually called for monostrand jack of 25 T capacity with a stroke 1000 mm, the individual stressing of strands was resorted to. 8. BEAM ERECTION The transportation and erection of beams were accomplished (Fig. 11) by 3 pairs of side shifting trolleys, a pair of motorised longitudinal trolleys and a pair of 35-toon capacity bed gantries. The side shifting trolleys were used to shift the beams from casting bed to stacking yard and from there to longitudinally motorised trolleys with the help of jacks. The longitudinal trolleys being designed at lower levels, the beams brought by side shifting trolleys were lowered to

In the water spans, between A/R to P8 and P10 to A/L, the bed gantries and longitudinal trolleys were moved on railway track over specially constructed embankments with the provision of hume pipes at suitable intervals for passing the water from u/s to d/s. However, not to constrict the water in a too narrow passage, a temporary service bridge was made on both sides of the piers to move the bed gantries between P8 and P10. This temporary bridge had single-line of piling on d/ s side to cater for the movement of one leg of the gantry where as on upstream side two lines of piles were provided to move longitudinal trolleys and transport other materials.

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Fig. 11. Casting Yard Layout for Sutlej

trolley on top of the deck slab and supporting half of the gentry (Fig. 14) on it proved to be safe, economical and fastest solution. This method was adopted for shifting both the gantries across P8 & P10 in seven days time without any risk and just taking care by dropping plumbs at four locations on both sides of the gantry to check the evenness of the movement.

Fig. 12. Showing the Erection scheme of Beam

Fig. 14. Transportation of gantry on deck

9. BEARINGS POT and POT-cum-PTFE bearings were used in the Sutlej Bridge. The typical bearing layout adopted in the bridge is shown in the Fig. 15. Earlier, normally for the simply supported bridges up to two lanes, fixed bearings (rocker) with a small play provision on one end and free bearings (roller) in the longitudinal direction having fixity in transverse direction has been successfully used for straight superstructure like Sutlej bridge. This arrangement for bridges with small deck width can

Fig. 13. Erection, side shifting & placement

The single line of piles on downstream side was collapsed during floods when the erection was in progress between P7 & A/L on Nakodar side. However, on Jagraon side the gantry was to be brought back to erect the beams on unfinished span A/R-P22. Among the alternatives considered, providing a

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Fig. 15. Bearing configuration for Sutlej bridge

be still successfully adopted as expansion/contraction taking place in pier caps and diaphragms connecting the superstructure are same. Nevertheless, to avoid the transverse restraint likely to be caused by thermal effects and wind force, a typical semi classical bearing arrangement as shown in the layout was adopted in Sutlej Bridge. As could be seen from the layout, there were two types of bearings in span and these two types of bearings might have different plate sizes and bolting locations, depending upon the forces, rotations and movements. In the precast construction like Sutlej Bridge, the grooves have to be left in the beams at the bolting locations and as such the manufacture of the bearings have to be approved prior to the precasting of beams. Normally, the approval of bearing manufacture is a very high lead-time item, which was well synchronised in this project. At each pier location for a span, two central bearings were fixed which were guided longitudinally on the other side, where as two extreme girders on either side were transversely guided while on other side left free. This semi classical layout helped in reducing the types of bearings to suit the precast construction.

10. LOAD TESTING OF SUPERSTRUCTURE In line with the contract agreement, one of the spans was to be validated by load testing to the designed IRC loading, including impact factor. As shown in the Fig. 16 the IRC loadings were simulated for the maximum moments in the midspan including cycle track loadings. All the pedestals were progressively and simultaneously loaded by progressive increments of 25 per cent of the test load and the deflections were recorded at the midspan of all girders and and th span of the third girder from left side. The maximum load was sustained for 24 hours; during the period deflection readings were taken at one-hour interval for the sustained loading. Then the unloading was simultaneously carried out in 25 per cent decrements with the readings taken during each decrement. The deflection readings of unloaded structure continued at one-hour interval for further 48 hours. For each stage of loading and unloading, the observations were made about the likely appearance of cracks, the linearity of the load deflection curves or any other abnormalities in the

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Fig. 16. Load Testing of Super Structure

load deflection behaviour. It was ensured that the bearings are functional by measurement of rotation. The deflection measurements were done by suspension wire method at the required locations using dial gauges. In this method stools were embedded in firm ground and dial gauges of least count of 0.01mm were clamped to them. The spindles of the dial gauges were connected by a pair of adapters in plumb line with GI wire. To eliminate the effects of temperature, the deflection readings were taken at fixed timings for all the operation of loadings and unloading. The maximum observed deflection for G3 girder at midspan was 5.35 mm vis--vis maximum theoretical deflection of 7.3 mm, with the percentage recovery of 94.95, calculated as per IRC: SP-51. 11. SUMMARYAND CONCLUSION Precast pretensioning technology up to the span of 50 m for river bridge decks can be economically exploited due to its material efficiency. The following design and construction aspects deserve special mention in the context of Sutlej Bridge. 1. Design aspect (a) Separate guidelines applicable to pretensioned concrete in IRC:18; Universally, there are no separate codes for post tensioning and pretensioning as the majority of the aspects of prestressing are applicable

to both pretensioned and post tensioned concrete. However, there is an urgent need to modify the IRC: 18 which is meant only for post tensioned concrete bridges, to be applicable to both types of prestressing by giving separate design parameters, such as time dependent loss criteria, transmission length for pretensioning, permissible stresses, etc. wherever relevant and applicable. (b) Lateral stability for long span prestressed, precast beams; the guidelines for ensuring the lateral stability given in the codes are based on steel and RCC beams. Apart from span to depth and depth to top flange width ratios, the three independent factor of safeties i.e. (i) the factor of safety with respect to rotation against tidal instability for the nearly perfect beams, (ii) the factor of safety with respect to rotation with casting imperfection (iii) the factor of safety vis--vis the maximum rotation permissible has to be established, with due recognition of prestressing effects. (c) Long line bench effect for pretensioning and Hoyers effect for transmission length; (d) Well cap at the level of LWL/GL to facilitate quality construction; Providing well cap below the ground level by 3 to 5 m will only enhance construction difficulties and does not serve any aspect of good engineering practice.

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2. Construction aspect (a) Provision of track-line for gantries as proper embankment in the river bed; (b) Provision of temporary Service Bridge across the river; (c) Mechanisation of concreting for pretensioned beam. (d) Use of large panel formwork for piers and beams; (e) Bearing configuration, fixing of bearings and stabilisation of beams after the erection till the casting of diaphragms and deck slab; Many of the above design and construction aspects warrant in depth knowledge and meticulous micro planning to suit the adoption of particular type of technology. 3. Proposal for codal guidelines for pretensioning On the basis of designing and executing long span pretensioned bridge spans, the authors propose the following: (a) The minimum dimensions of the cross section shall be (i) Thickness of top flange: 100 mm (ii) Thickness of bottom flange: 150 mm (iii) Thickness of web: 150 mm (b) The span to depth and depth to width ratios for optimum beam cross section from lateral stability considerations shall satisfy following Factor Of Safeties (i) FOS with out casting imperfections > 2 (ii) FOS with initial imperfections > 1.5 (iii) FOS with Actual angle of tilt > 1.1 (c) Provided adequate un-tensioned reinforcements are designed for pre cast girder, the tension shall be

permitted at the top fibre of the girder which may be restricted to 0.36(Fck)0.5. (d) The losses due to seating and friction are not applicable to pre tensioning. The elastic shortening loss shall be considered for a condition that all strands are stressed at the same time and pre stress transfer to concrete is simultaneous. In case of pre tensioned girders relaxation losses start as soon as pretensioning is carried out, but the effect of which is transferred to concrete at the time of pre stress transfer due to which relaxation losses calculated as per IRC:18 shall be divided by 2 for assessment of actually available pre stressing force at transfer. It is not necessary to consider 20 per cent additional time dependent losses for pre-tensioned girders. (e) Transmission length due to Hoyers effect shall be considered to be 30 times the diameter of tendon. (f) Pre tensioning bench for long line casting shall be designed for 20 per cent additional capacity to overcome Long Line Bench Effect. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors would like to place on record the sincere thanks to honourable Managing Director, Joint Managing Director, Chief Engineer and his colleagues of Punjab Infrastructure Development Board (PIDB) without whose cooperation, guidance and encouragement, the successful completion of this bridge would not have been possible. The authors would also like to thank all the engineers at H.O. and site of Gammon India Limited for their monumental efforts to construct such a large bridge within a very short period.