Millau bridge in France

The Millau Bridge is a cable-stayed bridge in southern France and crosses the River Tarn in the Massif Central mountains. It is one of  the highest bridges in the world. The central pillar is higher than the Eiffel Tower. The Bridge is possibly one of the most breath taking bridges ever built. It was designed by the French structural engineer Michel Virlogeux and British architect Norman Foster. The total height of the bridge above the water is 336,4 m. The six central or inner spans are 342 m long, the two outer spans have a length of  204 m. The deck is 32 m wide and 2460 m long. It carries four lanes of traffic. The road deck is 246 m above the water level, and the pylons, or towers, rise another 90 m above a road deck. Millau Viaduct is part of the motorway axis from Paris to Barcelona. 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 an award in 2006.

The bridge was constructed above the Tarn Valley and the aim of Lord Foster was to design it with the ‘delicacy of a butterfly’. Lord Foster designed a bridge that enhances the natural beauty of the valley, with the environment dominating the scene rather than the bridge. The bridge appears to float on the clouds despite the fact that it has seven pillars and a roadway of 1½ miles in length. On the first sight, the impression is of boats sailing on a sea of mist. The roadway threads through the seven pillars like thread through the eye of a needle.

The bridge was opened by President Jacques Chirac. In his speech he praised the design saying that it was a ‘monument to French engineering ‘genius’ and ‘a miracle of equilibrium’.

The bridge took only three years to complete with new engineering techniques being employed. The traditional method of building a cable stayed bridge involves building sections of the deck (roadway) and using cranes to put them in position. Because of its height, 900 feet above the valley floor a new technique had to be developed.

The towers were made of reinforced concrete and the cables and deck are made of steel. The roadway was constructed on either side of the valley and rolled into position, until it met with precision in the centre using GPS. This technique had never been tried before and it carried engineering risks. However, it proved to be an efficient method of deploying the roadway.

 

VII. Decide if these sentences are true or false.

1. The Millau bridge solved the problem of automobile traffic between Paris and Mediterranean Sea coast.

2. The bridge was constructed over the river Tarn and its valley.

3. The bridge has seven spans and a roadway of 1.5 miles in length.

4. Jacques Chirac was the main architect of the Millau bridge.

5. The cable-stayed bridge deck was erected traditionally using cranes to put sections on their places.

6. It took 5 years to build a bridge.

 

VIII. Complete the box using information from the text.

Structure	1. cable-stayed	Length of outer spans, m	7.
Completion date	2.	Number of piers	8.
Material: cables and deck	3.	Height of pylons above deck, m	9.
Material: piers	4.	Height of deck above water, m	10.
Total number of spans	5.	Length of deck, km	11.
Length of inner spans, m	6.	Width of deck, m	12.

IX. Make a presentation about one of the cable-stayed bridges in the world. The information below will help you.

1. The type of the bridge.

2. The place and the purpose of the bridge construction.

3. The period of the construction and the date of its opening.

4. The name of the architect and company that constructed the bridge.

5. Specifications of the bridge.

6. Technical innovations.

7. Peculiarities of the bridge.

8. The cost of the bridge.

SECTION V. PRESENTING OF BRIDGE RECONSTRUCTION METHODS AND EQUIPMENT

UNIT 8. BRIDGE RECONSTRUCTION

I. Match the words on the left to their Russian equivalents on the right.

1. superstructure               a) надвижка моста

2. substructure                  b) нижнее строение моста

3. abutments                      c) свая

4. waybeam                                d) лебёдка

5. pile                                          e) устои

6. winch                             f) направляющая балка

7. skates                            g) «окно» в движении

8. launching                                h) верхнее строение моста

9. possession                     i) накаточные устройства

 

II. Make up new words in the box.

develop	development
	requirement
reconstruct
	derailment
possess
operate
	electrification
locate

 

III. Translate the following attributive groups.

Civil engineering project, civil engineering project discussion, civil engineering project discussion results; railway traffic hour, road traffic rush hours, abutment reconstruction, abutment reconstruction methods, conventional abutment reconstruction methods; bridge superstructure, bridge superstructure repositioning, bridge superstructure lateral repositioning.