Australian Small Bridges Conference 2005

BRIDGES TO GO - TEMPORARY
BRIDGE STRUCTURES

Bernard Shepherd
GHD

Bernard Shepherd is the Manager Rail and Construction Engineering in GHD’s

Melbourne office, responsible for rail projects and construction engineering of bridge
structures. He has extensive international experience and has worked with Europe
Etudes in Paris where projects included offshore structures in the North Sea and
pioneering projects in match cast segmental construction with Jean Muller. He is the
Public Officer of the Australian French Association for Science and Technology (AFAS)
and is a past Chairman of the Victorian Branch of the Association of Consulting
Engineers Australia ( ACEA ).
Bernard was recently the Design Sub-Committee Convenor for the preparation of a new
Industry Standard in Victoria - published by WorkSafe Victoria - for the Construction
and Erection of Bridge Beams over Rail and Road.

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BRIDGES TO GO - TEMPORARY
BRIDGE STRUCTURES
Abstract

The temporary bridge has been an often neglected sector of civil engineering, where the word
“temporary” has too frequently been a synonym for unimportant. The reality is that temporary
bridge structures have had signifcant roles throughout history as pedestrian and road structures
and over the last century as rail structures. At times of natural disasters and in times of war the
use of temporary bridges has been critical in the reestablishment of communications and the
provision of access to strategic objectives.

This paper provides a brief overview of the principal types of temporary bridges and outlines the
key factors in their selection and use. It will be seen that military applications have provided the
major impetus for the development of temporary bridge designs.

Keywords: temporary, bridge, military, pedestrian, Bailey, Mabey, Matière

1. Introduction
The temporary bridge is as old as mankind. Its first appearance was probably as a pedestrian
bridge in the form of a log over a stream as early man developed his skills as a hunter gatherer.
Even today the simple log crossing remains probably the most widespread form of temporary
bridge, either pedestrian or vehicular. Figure 1 below gives a current example.

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Fig. 1 Typical temporary log bridge in Newfoundland, Canada

Military applications have always been among the earliest and most significant uses of temporary
bridges. The most spectacular examples include the 3 km floating bridge built for the Emperor
Claudius in 37 AD and a 2 km pontoon bridge that the Persian Emperor Darius used to cross the
Bosphorus in about 500 BC.

The first name that usually comes to mind in any discussion on temporary bridges is that of Sir
Donald Coleman Bailey who developed the Bailey Bridge in World War II. The Bailey Bridge has
subsequently become the standard for temporary bridges throughout the world. More detail is
given on the Bailey Bridge in section 2.

A modern use of temporary bridging is the extensive requirement for pedestrian bridges during
major entertainment events. Specialist engineering firms provide pedestrian and vehicular
bridges for events such as Grand Prix meetings and similar mass sporting fixtures. Safety and
crowd control are major features of these structures, with safety being of critical concern
following the Maccabiah Games disaster in 1997.

2. The Bailey Bridge

It has been reported that after World War II Field Marshall Montgomery ( ‘Monty’ )said of the
Bailey Bridge that “ without the Bailey Bridge we would not have won the war “. Perhaps a slight
exaggeration but it does underline the overwhelming importance of temporary bridge structures
in time of war.

Sir Donald Coleman Bailey was born in Rotherham, in Yorkshire, England. After graduating as
an engineer from the University of Sheffield he worked in the railway industry before joining the
Ministry of Supply’s Experimental Bridging Establishment in 1929. By the time World War II had
broken out in 1939 he had already developed an idea for a military bridge.

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Fig 2 Sir Donald Coleman Bailey at 81years of age

The concept of the Bailey Bridge is a simple steel truss structure made from fully standardised
components that can be easily transported and assembled by troops under battlefield conditions.
It was designed to be capable of being carried in kit form and to not require special vehicles for
transport.

Fig 3 Bailey’s sketch of the simple concept ( reproduced in 1980 )

A variety of spans and cross sections can be built up from the basic modules, either with or
without walkways. During World War II the number of brige units produced was of the order of
three hundred thousand. This amounted to a total weight of 490,000 tons in 700,000 Bailey
Panels which is equivalent to approximately 200 miles of fixed bridge and 40 miles of floating
bridge. Colonel J H Joiner’s book “One More River to Cross - The story of British Military
Bridging” 1 gives a detailed account of the emergence of the Bailey Bridge and its rapid
acceptance by the Allied Forces in World War II. Earlier attempts at producing “standard”
temporary bridges such as as the Inglis and Hamilton bridges were unsuccessful and could meet
neither the loading nor the rapid installation requirements of military applications.

The principal features of the Bailey bridge relate to its modular nature and simple structural forms
and details:

 Truss panels simple to fabricate with symmetrical top and bottom chords
 Connections between panels using pins
 Footway elements attached by bolts
 Pinned end supports
 A single truss panel can be comfortably carried by 6 men

The steel specification for the chord and web members of the truss panels was BS 968 weldable
steel modified to increase the yield strength from 21 to 23 t/in2 ( approx 350 Mpa ) and for the
pins a manganese- molybdenum alloy with a yield strength of 65 t/in2 ( approx 1000 Mpa ).

Figure 4 below shows the basic cross sections available for a single lane Bailey bridge with
varying clear spans for road bridges from 6.1 m up to 61 m.

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Fig. 4 The original typical cross sections for a basic single lane Bailey Bridge

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Fig 5 A modern Bailey Bridge over the Meurthe River in France

The Mabey Bridge Group in the UK and in the USA has now taken the Bailey Bridge through to a
fourth generation with sophisticated launching technology and spans up to 60 m. Figure 6
illustrates the current configuration now being marketed by Mabey. These bridges are
particularly suitable for long term or permanent use.

Fig 6 Fourth generation Bailey Bridge ( Delta Bridge ) as marketed by Mabey

The Bailey Bridge is still the current standard military bridge of the US Army. A US firm, Bailey
Bridges Inc, markets the Bailey components which are either ex-US Army stock or newly
manufactured in the USA.

Pier and abutment structures are also available as standardised elements but these are
invariably customised to suit individual sites.

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3. Safety
Safety has always been a critical consideration for temporary bridges but it has now become the
single most important consideration since the Maccabiah Games disaster in Israel in 1997 where
4 Australian athletes died and 67 were injured when a temporary bridge collapsed throwing the
athletes into a polluted river.

The Australia/Israel Review published an article entitled “the Bridge Too Far”2 in which it
summarised the findings from the Dotan Committee appointed to examine the reasons for the
failure. It found that the bridge collapsed as the end result of a “chain of negligence” and, in
particular:

 Faulty design/planning and a failure to comply with the Israeli Standards Institute criteria;
 Builders with no experience or qualifications in bridge building;
 Sub-standard materials;
 Poor coordination between the builders and the designers/planners;
 Total absence of supervision;
 Work executed without drawings and/or instructions;
 Use of ready made materials in stock but without adaptation to the project.

The construction company’s expertise was in theatre set and stage construction for indoor and
outdoor events. According to the Australia/Israel Review “in no way are they an engineering
company, not by definition and not by expertise”. On the other hand their price to carry out the
project was unbeatable at just under one third of the price to have the bridge designed and
erected by the IDF ( Israel Defence Force ) as had been done successfully for the previous
games.

As in other cases, the lowest tender has proven to be fatal.

Since 1997 strict guidelines have come into force around the world to ensure that temporary
pedestrian bridges have the same level of safety as a permanent bridge. The Maccabiah Games
disaster has had the beneficial result that similar collapses have become much less likely and
many lives have almost certainly been saved thanks to the sacrifice of Yetti Bennett, Gregory
Small, Elizabeth Sawicki and Warren Zines who died in Israel in 1997.

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4. The future - a new bridge type - the Matière Unibridge

There is a saying in France that history repeats itself and resembles itself (l’histoire se répète et
se ressemble). Once again this is true in the case of the evolution of temporary bridges.

As the Bailey Bridge was a product of World War II a new generation of bridges has been born
from the Bosnian conflict of the 1990s. With the Bailey Bridge still being extensively used by the
Nato units it had become apparent that under the conditions of modern warfare - powerful
mobile units and relatively heavy engineering capabilities as well as an emphasis on minimising
casualties - the Bailey Bridge was no longer the ideal solution for rapid installation of temporary
bridging. Problems included the high number of relatively small, not particularly robust
components, loss and damage to key elements, labour intensive assembly and too long a period
for installation even for small spans.

A series of conversations between old friends led to the start of work on a new type of bridge that
will eventually replace the Bailey Bridge in most applications. On a cool, cloudy day in the spring
of 2002 the Matière Unibridge was born.

4.1 The Unibridge Concept

The concept priorities related to the rapid installation of both temporary and/or permanent steel
bridge structures. Element weights are limited to 12 tonnes.

 Deck materials - steel, concrete or timber depending on the nature of the application;
 Deck widths - one or two traffic lanes;
 Footways - one or two lateral footways outside the traffic carriageway;
 Span lengths - multiples of 11.6 metres; up to 46.4 m for road traffic and 23.2 m for heavy
rail applications;
 Standardised abutment and foundation systems;
 Installation time - 12 hours for a single lane, single span bridge.

Figure 7 below shows a typical cross section for a steel decked Unibridge to take two lanes of
traffic and with two footways.

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Fig. 7 Cross section for a two lane Unibridge with steel decking and footways on both sides

4.2 Definitive Designs

In the course of design development the modular length increased slightly to 11.6 m, which gave
span lengths of up to 46.4 m for road bridges and 23.2 m for rail bridges. The rail bridge option
is particularly important in that it allows rapid re-establishment of rail links to minimise the high
penalty rates that apply to rail infrastructure leases where the infrastructure is temporarily out of
service.

The definitive designs have paid particular attention to ease of installation and durability in the
context of use as permanent bridges. Rural bridges and rapid installation rail bridges are
specific examples of applications where the “temporary” situation can extend over very long
periods.

Figure 8 shows a permanent Unibridge structure with a concrete deck.

Fig. 8 A permanent Unibridge structure in a mounainous rural setting

Available cross sections give a high degree of flexibility between one and two lane structures.
Whereas most temporary bridges will tend to be single lane structures - or multiple single lane
structures - the permanent applications can easily be installed as two lane bridges.

Continuous structures with intermediate piers are also possible and the combinations and
permutations of these solutions has not yet been fully explored.

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Figure 9 on the following page illustrates a single span temporary bridge which has been
installed to allow work on a larger permanent bridge to proceed. This is an application familiar to
all Municipalities and Highway Authorities. The steel deck surface is pretreated with an epoxy
anti-skid compound. Figure 10 shows a permanent two lane bridge with a precast concrete
deck.

Fig. 9 A single lane, single span ( steel deck ) temporary example of a Unibridge application

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Fig. 10 A two lane Unibridge as a permanent structure with a precast concrete deck

The definitive designs have produced a number of robust and simple connection and seating
details. Section 4.3 describes these in more detail.

4.3 Connection Details

For rapid installation the key is to have simple, pin connections for the major structural elements.
This was the case for the Bailey Bridges and is also the case - but with far fewer operations -
for the Unibridges. Figures 11 and 12 give close up views of the main pin connections.

Fig. 11 The main Unibridge pin connections prior to assembly

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Fig. 12 Unibridge pin assemblies in a completed bridge

4.4 Construction Methods

The method of bridge erection will depend on the site constraints and available equipment.
Transport to site can be by normal truck and the Unibridge elements are also designed to fit
within standard 40 ft containers.

Placing by crane or launching of preassembled bridges are the two principal methods of bridge
erection. Figure 13 shows a 35 m span bridge element being placed by crane and figure 14
gives schematic views of a launching operation.

Fig. 13 Placing of a 35 m span preassembled beam by crane

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Fig. 14 Schematic views of a typical launching operation

One feature of the Unibridge is the ability to precamber the beam elements to suit the span
lengths of the bridges. The only span length that is not precambered is the single element 11.6
m span.

4.4 Rail Bridges

There are no obvious visual differences between the road and rail bridge elements of the
Unibridge. The only modification of detail is in the fixing provisions for the rail tracks which will
usually be preassembled on the bridges before erection.

4.5 The Matière Company

The Matière Company responsible for the Unibridge is a civil engineering specialist fabricator
based in France which produces a range of concrete and steel products related to culverts,
arches and bridging. Matière concrete products are used throughout the world - fabricated
under license - but the steel products are only just emerging on the world market.

Unibridge has been developed with the technical assistance of Jean Muller International. It has
recently been the recipient of the prestigious Prix de l’Innovation awarded by the French National
Federation of Public Works in Paris in May 2005.

5. Conclusions

Military applications have dominated the evolution of temporary bridges from the time of the
earliest armies and their campaigns. This has not changed into the present day with the
development of the Bailey Bridge in the 20th Century and The Matière Unibridge as we move into
the 21st Century.

As the rural bridge stock built last century continues to deteriorate there is also going to be an
increasing demand for rapid intervention structures to replace bridges that are critical to
communications in country areas, not only in Australia but throughout the world.

The recent prolifieration of mass entertainment and sporting events has also led to an increase in
the importance of temporary pedestrian structures, often custom designed and built for specific
purposes. These are much less amenable to standardisation than vehicular bridges and need
strict safety monitoring to avoid repeats of the Maccabiah Games disaster in 1997.

6. References
1. “One More River to Cross - The story of British Military Bridging”, Colonel J H Joiner,
Leo Cooper - Pen and Sword Books, 2001;

2. The Australia/Israel Review 25 July – 7 August 1997

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3. “Bailey Bridge - Significant Engineering Lessons”, D R Morris, 9 October 2002,

www.enghis.org

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