Road along a mountain side

Abstract

The Redwood highway, through the Californian forest, runs on a viaduct, as it crosses a mountain slope of about 45° inclination. The firm ground is fairly deep, and as an additional constructional difficulty, it was necessary to respect the natural beauty of the countryside. A structure of portal frames were built, forming a number of short spans. These spans were bridged with metal girders, on which a 19 m wide deck was placed. The columns are hollow and have a transversal cross beam, to join each pair. There was difficulty in excavating the foundations for the columns, as it was necessary to dig through the soft top soil, and also prevent this soil from hurting the trunks of the forest trees. Another significant difficulty in the construction of this viaduct was the access to the working site, since there were no suitable platforms from which to operate the appropriate machinery. This made it necessary to do a lot of the work by manual operation. As one of the edges of the deck is very close to the mountain side, a supporting beam was erected on this side. It was made of concrete, on metal piles. The formwork for the deck structure was placed on the concrete stems of the supporting piles.