Brisbane’s Newest River Bridge Carries No Cars or Trucks

Location:	Brisbane, Queensland
Country:	Australia
Engineer:	John Holland Group
Fabricator:	John Holland Structural Mechanical Process (SMP) Division
Products Used:	AS/NZS 3678 - 350 XLERPLATE® steel

Brisbane's new Eleanor Schonell Bridge is Australia's first pedestrian, cycle and bus bridge. The A$55 million bridge, which links Dutton Park, five kilometres from the Brisbane CBD, with the University of Queensland at St. Lucia, is designed to carry buses, cyclists, pedestrians and emergency service vehicles.

The John Holland Group won the contract to design, construct and maintain the 390 metre span cable stay bridge over the Brisbane River.

The bridge design includes two twin column 70 metre towers supporting a composite steel and concrete deck which is 20 metres wide, 1.5 metres deep and 185 metres long.

More than 875 tonnes of 350 Grade XLERPLATE® steel from BlueScope Steel was used to fabricate key sections of the deck for the structure, which was originally known simply as the "Green Bridge".

The massive welded sections required for the bridge were fabricated by John Holland's specialist Structural Mechanical Process (SMP) division at the company's Richlands facility then delivered to John Holland's on site construction staff.

The group's project director for the bridge, David Balmer, said the use of steel for the deck had enabled the design team to innovate.

"Specifying steel for the composite deck provided an opportunity for significant cost savings on the overall project for our client and played a part in keeping the construction to a tight timetable," he said.

"This is the first major cable stay bridge built in Australia in the last decade. We devised a modular system for the steelwork, based on the need to alternate between adding cantilevered sections on the bank side then river side of the supporting columns to balance the weight."

Delivered to the bridge construction site by road then assembled and checked in a jig before being lifted into position by crane, each 9.6 metre long steel module weighed up to 24 tonnes.

"Every single piece of steel fabrication work for the bridge was done at the John Holland SMP facility at Richlands," Alban Manning, John Holland Manager – Fabrication and Coatings, said.

"The sophistication of the steelwork design and the level of quality required was the highest with which I have been associated."

The need for accuracy in the welding of angled cable stay anchorages to the bridge deck modules was also crucial for David Balmer and the construction crew.

"There were very tight tolerances in matching those angles on the deck modules with the cable slots on the towers," David Balmer said. "It all worked according to plan and then each steel module was covered with a combination of precast and in situ concrete to create the deck."

Many of the steel modules were identical in size, but there were variations adjacent to the bridge columns and headstocks.

"The majority of the girders were 1200mm deep, but some were three metres deep," Alban Manning said. "For the whole project there was a wide range of web and flange sizes. We were dealing with a range of XLERPLATE® steel thicknesses from 12mm to 70mm.

"There was also a very high level of expectation associated with the finish of the steelwork we delivered, particularly because John Holland has an ongoing maintenance contract for the structure."

Space limitations at the bridge construction site created project management challenges for David Balmer at Dutton Park. "This was a project we had to coordinate on a just in time basis, from start to finish," Alban Manning said.

"Reliable supply of the XLERPLATE® steel from BlueScope Steel in the required thicknesses was crucial, because at any one time we were working on 12 modules at various stages of their fabrication process.

"For a major project like this we review the performance of all of our suppliers. My main focus was on service and speed of supply for the steel we required and I've been very impressed by the standards achieved by BlueScope Steel for this project.

"We are absolutely committed to using Australian steel and BlueScope Steel has performed very well for us, not just on this project, but on other major infrastructure projects in Queensland."

Students, staff and visitors to the St Lucia campus currently make an average of 70,000 trips to and from the campus every day during a semester. This makes UQ the largest generator of trips in Brisbane, after the CBD.

Eleanor Schonell, after whom the bridge was named, was a noted teacher, academic and author. Her pioneering work with disabled children established an international reputation for the University of Queensland.