UAE | Traffic and Transport
The engineering challenge playing out above us
Like a gigantic train set, pillars and pre-cast concrete segments have been connected under the watch of motorists.
- By Ashfaq Ahmed, Chief Reporter
- Published: 00:01 March 16, 2008
- The viaduct is built using 10-metre-wide, 4-metre-long concrete sections which are pre-cast in Jebel Ali.
- Image Credit: Hadrian Hernandez/Gulf News
Dubai: Motorists driving along Shaikh Zayed Road and on the Airport Road have been able to follow one aspect of the construction of the Dubai Metro - the elevated tracks.
What is it for and how it is being built?
The elevated track is made of viaducts, which is a bridge deck between two pillars of the elevated track to carry the train. 44.1km of the 52.1km-long Red Line is elevated. Some 3.3km of the Red Line is at ground level and 4.7km underground.
Around 29km of the total 44.1 elevated bridge deck (viaduct) has been completed. The rest will be finished before the end of the year.
It is also one of the major milestones for the metro as the train track for the Red Line has to be complete by the end of this year.
Each of the viaduct spans (the stretch of bridge deck between two pillars) is made with a minimum of eight pre-cast viaduct segments, which are transported from Jebel Ali casting yard to the line.
Viaduct segments are lifted up and joined with the help of a launching girder. These huge yellow machine can be seen on pillars along Shaikh Zayed Road.
Each concrete segment of viaduct is 10 metres wide and four metres long and the average distance of each viaduct span is 32 metres.
Building viaduct spans in some areas was a challenging job for the contractors. The most difficult part so far is the construction of a bridge deck on interchange 55 near Ibn Battuta Mall on Shaikh Zayed Road. Here a three-span-bridge is being used between the two pillars. A three-span bridge is used where the distance between pillars is more than 32 metres. At this particular spot the shortest bridge deck is 44 metres long and the longest one is 72 metres long - the longest so far on the Red Line.
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