SANRAL has received many awards for excellence in
civil engineering during the past two decades.
These have included awards for bridge design
and engineering, community-based construction,
technical excellence, the provision and maintenance
of a superior primary road network and corrosion
protection.
SANRAL’s Eastern Region recently won the
Concrete Society of Southern Africa’s *Fulton
Award for Innovation in Concrete. The honour was
bestowed on SANRAL for its reinforced-concrete
Van Zyl Spruit Bridge on the N1, which lies between
Trompsburg and Fonteintjie.
The bridge is unique in that it is the first long integral bridge in
South Africa. An integral bridge is a
bridge without joints that spans from one abutment,
over intermediate supports, to the other abutment
without any movement joint in the deck. At 90m, the
Van Zyl Spruit Bridge is one of the longest integral
bridges in the world.
The five-span road bridge has a continuous deck,
consisting of two spine beams, fully integral with the
abutments and piers.
In conferring the award, the judges commented:
“The innovative use of integral bridges allows
savings in materials, no capital cost for bearings and
joints, lower maintenance costs, better durability
and makes concrete bridges more competitive.
“In addition, the installation of over 500 sensors
in the bridge structure, which are being logged
automatically every 15 minutes to detect and
quantify trends in strain, temperature, tilt and earth
pressure, makes this one of the first ‘smart’ bridges
in the country.
The data obtained from these
sensors will contribute to a better understanding
of environmental loading on the performance of
integral bridges in South Africa.”
Eastern Region Project Manager Hugh Brooks said
the award was a reflection of the high standard of
work on SANRAL projects and the agency’s ability to
keep up with ever-evolving economic, environmental
and aesthetic demands.
*The Fulton Awards are a tribute to the late Dr Sandy Fulton, for his outstanding contribution to the understanding of concrete, its development and improvement. Dr Fulton was one of the more prominent figures of the international concrete industry, with impressive achievements in research contained in 35 published papers. He left a legacy of scientific and technological advances in the construction industry.
