ABSTRACT
The Great Belt Fixed link is an 18 km combined road and rail link composed of a tunnel, suspension bridge and a 6.6 km long continuous multi-span concrete box-girder bridge, the Storebælt West Bridge. The Great Belt Link is the only railway connecting the Danish main islands of Zealand and Funen, which later connects to Jutland, forming a vital piece of infrastructure between Sweden and central Europe.
A total of 276 structural bearings support the two box-girders of the Great Belt West Bridge, one each for road and rail. In a collaboration between consultants from Rambøll and the owners Sund & Bælt, a bearing renovation/replacement program has been initiated to ensure the overall health of the structure, as the service life of the bearings is significantly lower than the 200 expected years of lifetime for the concrete structures.
Due to the scale of the structure and the quantity of bearings, a strategic digital-enabled maintenance program integrates a thorough inspection regime with permanent structural health monitoring providing the basis for detailed condition assessment of the bearings. Through these activities, the basis of a holistic maintenance program for renovation/replacement of the bearings is established, being carefully developed to minimize traffic disruption.
The challenge of undertaking precise renovation work in harsh sea conditions encompasses several disciplines: innovative design of temporary structures, mechanical and electrical design, and hydraulic bridge lifting, while incorporating effective IKT and risk management. A detailed concept development for the bearing renovation/replacement work is supported by 3D finite element models of temporary/permanent structures, as a vital means to examine key details and the effects of renovation work. This is further addressed by a planned test lifting and bearing replacement to assess the developed strategies and concepts before full scale implementation.
