Concrete panels as bridge?

[Tarw Coch]

Not much anyone can do about a bridge over a stream, pipe and backfill can bring down a world of misery about your ears.

Yes, I’m sure @howellcourtfarm touched on this on a thread a couple of weeks back

 

[steveR]

While concrete sleepers would never break as they are very strong they are also extremely heavy

250-300kg each

 

[steveR]

I would look into a professional bridge installation using tried and tested construction methods. It might be more expensive but it will be better than installing something and crossing your fingers.

My lad did some fag packet calcs for me a few years back for a small bridge over 12ft span. I was shocked at the requirement for the buttresses. A big old lump of ready mix going into the ground.

The steelwork and deck were relatively simple in comparison....

 

[Kiwi Pete]

My lad did some fag packet calcs for me a few years back for a small bridge over 12ft span. I was shocked at the requirement for the buttresses. A big old lump of ready mix going into the ground.

The steelwork and deck were relatively simple in comparison....

Yes, this is the crucial part

I managed to shift a farmer's bridge in my truck and that was simply the weight pushing the beams into the bank, because there just wasn't anything spreading the load at the end of the beams. 9 tonne on the corner and now his bridge has "that just rogered look"

 

[DaveGrohl]

Too many Isambard Kingdom Brunel's on here.
Just drop a pipe in the brook and chuck a load of rubble on top.

Great idea, can't see a problem. Should be a complete doddle to clean out the beck.

We tried a Heath Robinson design a few years ago to bridge a beck. Dropped part of a pylon in the beck and put a platform over the top to straddle the banks, not my idea I hasten to add. Did a great job of blocking the beck in no time. Caused no end of silting further upstream. Needless to, say digging the pylon back out was a b@st@rd of a job. We're onto bridge design 2.0 now. Using panels across a steel frame with concrete base on either bank is as far as we've got so far so this thread is of interest. Jim's construction above looks spot on, if slightly more engineered than our design. My thoughts were that panels could be replaced easily if one of them ever disintegrated over time.

 

[steveR]

Great idea, can't see a problem. Should be a complete doddle to clean out the beck.

We tried a Heath Robinson design a few years ago to bridge a beck. Dropped part of a pylon in the beck and put a platform over the top to straddle the banks, not my idea I hasten to add. Did a great job of blocking the beck in no time. Caused no end of silting further upstream. Needless to, say digging the pylon back out was a b@st@rd of a job. We're onto bridge design 2.0 now. Using panels across a steel frame with concrete base on either bank is as far as we've got so far so this thread is of interest. Jim's construction above looks spot on, if slightly more engineered than our design. My thoughts were that panels could be replaced easily if one of them ever disintegrated over time.

Push the support buttresses back further into the banks than you first think is needed. Make them bigger than you think too...

 

[DaveGrohl]

Push the support buttresses back further into the banks than you first think is needed. Make them bigger than you think too...

We're actually going to make the bridge 30ft wide to span 25ft distance. Idea was to put a long bed of concrete on each bank 25ft long with four RSJs spanning the gap, similar to Jim's above. Three 10ft panels covering the width of the bridge. The beck floods many times during the winter so we're happy to use a decent amount of concrete as a base on each bank.