Design and Calculation of the “Čadečka” Highway Bridge Launching Technology

The authors had the opportunity to contribute in the erection process of the „Čadečka” highway bridge between September 2014 and June 2015. The tasks of the authors were to design and execute the launching process of the steel main girders together with the design of the launching technology and the static check of the superstructure in each launching phase. The specialty of the launching process consisted in the complex bridge geometry. In top view two third of the bridge is located in a right arch of a circle, one part is a transient arch, a short part is straight and the end of the bridge is located in a transient arch having opposite curvature than the another end. In side view the bridge has also a curved shape with an extreme point in the middle part. In addition to this complex geometry the relative level distance between the two main I-girders is not constant along the longitudinal axis, it follows the exact geometry of the carriageway. This complex geometry cannot be launched without continuous modification of the erected shape, which made the launching process difficult. The paper gives an overview on the specialties of this complicated design and calculation process.