Concrete Products covers the issues that attract producers of ready mixed and manufactured concrete focusing on equipment and material technology, market development and management topics.
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62 • January 2015 www.concreteproducts.com FEATURE BY DON MARSH A Jane Addams Memorial Tollway/Inter- state 90 contractor capped the 2014 season with the first phase of prestressed concrete erection for the $95 million Fox River Bridge expansion—24 bulb tee girders, 90-in. deep, 150- to 168.5-ft. long—and proved how a proprietary hoisting scheme can replace conventional crane picks without disrupting immediately adjacent highway traffic. Plain, Wis.-based heavy/civil contractor Edward Kraemer & Sons Inc. devised twin gantries, each with a) one leg bearing on an existing structure of concrete deck, legacy prestressed concrete I girder and cast-in- place pier design; b) the other leg mounted on new piers widening the Fox River/I-90 crossing from six to eight lanes. First girder phase staging at the Elgin, Ill., site saw Kraemer crews position the 80-ft. long, 11-ft. wide and 27-ft. tall gan- tries 150–170 feet apart, depending on beam length. Each frame is designed with an 11-ft., cross-braced column on both ends to bear overhead trusses carrying two, 50-ton hoists and trolley. The gantries hoisted the deep bulb tees from trailers loaded at the new County Materials Corp. precast/prestressed operation in Janesville, Wis. The producer's contract covers 144 beams; over 2014-16 phases, they will be placed in four 170-ft., two 150-ft. and two 164-ft. spans—nine girders across twin structures bearing east- bound and westbound lanes. Once the initial beams were set at the east approach, Kraemer crews disassembled the gantry frame and moved it to the next open pier. They continued the sequence across sev- en piers serving new eastbound lanes and will repeat the process in mid-2015 for westbound lanes bearing on new cast-in-place piers. A 2014-16 window will see a new Fox River Bridge engulf the original structure, whose demolition is phased such that three lanes of traffic in each direction can be maintained nearly 100 percent of the time. Initial girder erection work proceeded without having to close any I-90 lanes, a con- venience cranes staged on the existing bridge would not have afforded. Kraemer positioned a standard height concrete barrier to separate eastbound traffic—flowing at or near normal speed—from the gantry, trailer and girder staging area. On the second to last day of 2014 gantry duty, Marathon, Wis., heavy hauler B&K; Truck- ing, LLC maneuvered a 168.5-ft. girder in a staging zone occupying eastbound lanes and shoulder, traffc from which was shifted north—affording three lanes of capacity in each direction through the early eastbound structure widening. B&K; hauled the 150- to 168.5- ft. girders from Janesville, Wis., about 75 miles from the Fox River Bridge site. A sudden absence of any eastbound Interstate 90 traffc alerted Kraemer crews of beam and state trooper escort approach. Loads typically arrived the evening prior to scheduled erection. The longest girders best by one foot what had been a record length for trailered prestressed beams on a project following Illinois Department of Transportation specs: the Des Plaines River Valley Bridge, the centerpiece of the Illinois Tollway's Interstate 355 extension, con- necting Interstates 80 and 88. County Material's Illinois predecessor business, Prestressed Engineering Corp., fabricated the 167.5-ft. girders for the 2007 contract. Prodigious Picks Custom gantry places 97-ton County Materials bridge beams steps from NORMAL INTERSTATE traffic PHOTOS: Concrete Products In addition to placement at a pace matching what could be attained with multiple, large cranes, the gantry scheme enables Kraemer to deliver the new Fox Riv- er Bridge with a single longitudinal joint versus three on the original structure. Such streamlining is a critical engineering detail for Illinois Tollway, an agency wise to main- tenance costs and traffic disruption attrib- utable to continuous bridge deck openings. Elimination of two longitudinal joints will net an incentive for Kraemer, which is han- dling abutment-to-abutment work as a member of lead contractor, Kenney Kraemer Joint Venture. Illinois Tollway has engi- neered the project in house and retained Oak Park, Ill.-based Thomas Engineering Group as construction manager. Continued on page 64