HS2's innovative Wendover Dean Viaduct moves into next phase of construction
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Published 2023-06-29
Travelling at night to reduce disruption for the local community, the 25m long steel beams were transported on the back of extra-long lorries, with traffic management in place to stop traffic as they negotiated corners and narrow sections of road.
Manufactured by Eiffage Metal at a specialist facility in France, each of the 40 tonne beams is made of ‘weathering steel’ which naturally fades to a dark brown colour over time. This type of steel was chosen to help match the natural tone of the surrounding countryside.
Located south of the village of Wendover in Buckinghamshire, the 450m-long viaduct will be the first major railway bridge in the UK to be built with a ‘double composite’ structure, using significantly less carbon-intensive concrete and steel in comparison to a more traditional design.
Over the summer, HS2 Ltd’s main works contractor, EKFB - a team made up of Eiffage, Kier, Ferrovial Construction and BAM Nuttall – will assemble the beams into the first of five 90m long spans, ready to be pushed out onto the viaduct piers later this year.
EKFB worked with their design partner, ASC (a joint venture between Arcadis, Setec and COWI) and specialist architects Moxon on the ‘double composite’ approach which was inspired by structures on the French high speed TGV network. As well as manufacturing the steel, Eiffage Metal will also leading on the installation of the beams.
Instead of using solid pre-stressed concrete beams to form the bridge spans, the viaduct will use two steel beams sandwiched between two layers of reinforced concrete to create a lightweight and super strong hollow span.
The huge spans will be assembled on site, with pre-cast concrete sections added to form the box-like structure. These will then be slowly pushed out from the north abutment onto each of the concrete piers later this year.
Construction has also begun on the enormous piers – some up to 14 metres high – that will support the deck of the viaduct. These are made up of a series of hollow pre-cast concrete shells which are placed on top of each other and filled with concrete and steel reinforcing. This approach was chosen to enable a crisp, clean external finish to the concrete, cut the amount of work on site and reduce disruption for local residents.
Once complete, HS2 will link London, Birmingham and the North – dramatically improving journeys while freeing up space for more freight and local services on the existing network. Trains will be powered by zero-carbon electricity from day one and carry up to 1,100 passengers.
The double composite approach is set to save an estimated 7,433 tonnes of embodied carbon within materials – the equivalent of someone taking 20,500 return flights from London to Edinburgh – and help HS2 achieve its goal of halving the amount of embedded carbon in construction.
Find out more at: www.hs2.org.uk/
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All Comments (21)
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Incredible engineering, everyone involved should be proud of what they have achieved, well done 👌
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Looks Amazing! I Can't wait to see it get along! Great Visuals really help me understand thanks!
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Always happy when I see a new HS2 video is available. Always so interesting and well produced.
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Interesting.. Would be even better with some detailed diagrams and also a map
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Great British Engineering
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Using the concrete in compression and steel in tension? what witchcraft are you performing young man? Balderdash to you sir, this wizardry will never catch on!
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Excellent, thanks for finding someone who has fluent English.
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Please give me opportunity to work with your organisation 🎉🎉🎉
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Another amazing (and expensive) addition to what will become the Great British Cycle Path when HS2 gets cancelled 🤷🏻♂️
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Thank you sir, for keeping us informed. I would like to refer to your comments about the aesthetics of Wendover Dean viaduct, 'so it will sit very nicely within the landscape.' Are you sure about that? The side profile of the impression at 1:15 looks like an oil pipeline on a row of split matchsticks - the deck appears to be too bulky for the piers. Would you suggest that the cutting to the south-east of the viaduct, all the way to the tunnel at South Heath, will sit very nicely in the landscape too. Of course not; because it will be a scar. I really shouldn't knock it, when the whole HS2 nonsense is abandoned and converted into the world's most expensive cycle way, I will be one of the first to use it
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According to Vanguard and Black Rock ESG Rating tobacco is more ethical than Tesla 😂😂😂?
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As usual HS2 showing excellent 21st century engineering. But scrap the dumb 'rainbow' logo. We don't need woke on every sign and label thanks.
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Wendover is completely ruined, this construction has made life a living nightmare!! Disgusting vanity project!!
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Concrete and a rusty bridge(the new look)does not blend into the environment, who are you trying to kid, except yourselves.
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Shame these beams are not UK sourced and fabricated and we give some credit to our boys for a change, but no....the credit again goes abroad again.
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Why was the steel made in France and not uk
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Whats the flag got to do with this ?
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Why is this hs2 channel have the perverts symbol in its title. What’s that got to do with engineering ? Don’t bloody expect me to subscribe.
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HS2 trusted with £100 billion to build a railway line and they can’t say what a woman is or can tell the difference between a primary schoolgirl and a cat ?
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Can we have less of the satanic flags?
