Hoover Dam Bypass - Arch Form Verification
Hoover Dam Bypass - Arch Form Verification
Boulder City, Nevada, U.S.A
The Colorado River Bridge is the central portion of the Hoover Dam Bypass project. Construction on the nearly 2,000-foot long bridge began in late January 2005 and the entire Hoover Dam Bypass Project was completed in August 2012. Now completed, this signature bridge spans the Black Canyon (about 1,500 feet south of the Hoover Dam), connecting the Arizona and Nevada approach highways nearly 900 feet above the Colorado River. The bridge project, Mike O'Callaghan - Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, cost $240 million with $114 million allocated to the bridge construction.
Innova provided third party independent services to NRS-Asia, verifying the adequacy of the flying form traveler used to cast the concrete arch structure. Two sets of checks were performed; first, the whole flying formwork was modeled in 3-D finite element method with varying geometries and support conditions to replicate the actual form usage along the concrete arch. Then, once the models were run, all members, bolted connections, and welded connections were evaluated for easiness of construction and reliability of service. Several design improvements were related to the fabricator that implemented those recommendations prior to the usage of the forms.