The Millau Viaduct is a cable-stayed bridge that spans the valley of the River Tarn near Millau in southern France.
Designed by the French structural engineer Michel Virlogeux and British architect Norman Foster, it is the tallest bridge in the world with one mast's summit at 343 metres above the base of the structure. It is the 12th highest bridge deck in the world, being 270 metres between the road deck and the ground below. Millau Viaduct is part of the A75-A71 autoroute axis from Paris to Montpellier. Construction cost was approximately €400 million. It was formally inaugurated on 14 December 2004, and opened to traffic on 16 December.
The bridge has been consistently ranked as one of the great engineering achievements of all time. The bridge received the 2006 International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering Outstanding Structure Award.
Some technical notes
The pier dimensions are as follows:
In the longitudinal direction: 16 to 17 meters
In the lateral direction: variable from 10 meters at the pylon head to 27 at the foot of the highest pier.
The piers split into two separate shafts around 90 meters below deck level. Each shaft is vertically post-tensioned using 8 19T15S cables.
The shaft dimension in the longitudinal direction are also variable from 5 meters at the head to 8.60 meters where the join.
The total height of the pylons is 87 meters. Their shape is that of an inverted Y in the longitudinal direction. The height of the legs of the Y is 38 meters.
The deck is cable-stayed. The stays are arranged in two planes with 11 stays each in a sem-fan arrangement. Deck anchors are spaced at 12.51 meters.
Each pylon has a weight of 650 tons and a height of nearly 89 meters. The assembly was done behind the abutments. They were then transported horizontally on Kamag trucks to the final location where they were lifted and rotated into place using a temporary structure.
Author of the film: Eiffage CEVM/Foster & Partners
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