WHERE ARE WE?
VAN ZYL SPRUIT BRIDGE SCOOPS FULTON AWARD

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.