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General Information

Beginning of works: 1970
Completion: 1974
Status: in use

Project Type

Structure: Single-cell box girder bridge
Function / usage: Road bridge
Material: Steel bridge

Location

Location: , , ,
, , ,
Crosses:
  • Seine River
Replaces: Alma Bridge (1856)
Coordinates: 48° 51' 49" N    2° 18' 6" E
Show coordinates on a map

Technical Information

Dimensions

total length 142.50 m
span lengths 110 m - 31.50 m
number of spans 2
deck deck width 42 m

Quantities

structural steel 2 x 1 634 t (573 kg/m²)

Materials

deck slab steel
girders steel

Notes

The bridge was built with such a span arrangement to reduce the number of piers in the river. The suitable load bearing stratum being at 42.40 m below river water level, building more than one pier would have been too costly.

Excerpt from Wikipedia

Pont de l'Alma (English: Alma Bridge) is a road bridge in Paris, France across the Seine. It was named to commemorate the Battle of Alma during the Crimean War, in which the Ottoman-Franco-British alliance achieved victory over the Russian army, on 20 September 1854.

History

Construction

Construction of an arch bridge took place between 1854 and 1856. It was designed by Paul-Martin Gallocher de Lagalisserie and was inaugurated by Napoleon III on 2 April 1856. Each side of both of the two piers was decorated with a statue of military nature: a Zouave and a grenadier by Georges Diébolt, and a skirmisher and an artilleryman by Arnaud.

The Zouave statue and flooding

The general public took the original bridge as a measuring instrument for water levels in times of flooding on the Seine: access to the footpaths by the river embankments usually was closed when the Seine's level reached the feet of The Zouave; when the water hit his thighs, the river was unnavigable. During the great flood of the Seine in 1910, the level reached his shoulders. The French Civil Service used the Pont de la Tournelle, not the Pont de l'Alma, to gauge flood levels, and since 1868 uses the Pont d'Austerlitz.

Reconstruction

The bridge underwent complete reconstruction as a girder bridge between 1970 and 1974, as it had been too narrow to accommodate the increasing traffic both on and below it; moreover, the structure had subsided some 80 centimeters. Only the statue of the Zouave was retained: the Skirmisher was relocated to the Gravelle Stronghold in Vincennes, the Grenadier to Dijon, and the Artilleryman to La Fère.

Death of Diana, Princess of Wales

Entrance to the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in April 1998, the site where Diana's car hit a Fiat and then the wall Main article: Death of Diana, Princess of Wales

The bridge is close to the Pont de l'Alma tunnel where Diana, Princess of Wales and four others were involved in a fatal car crash on 31 August 1997. They were being chased by paparazzi, and their chauffeur was driving under the influence of alcohol. The Flame of Liberty (completed in 1987), at the bridge's north end has become an unofficial memorial to Diana.

Technical specifications

Pont de l'Alma has a length of 153 meters (502 ft) and a width of 42 meters (138 ft).

Text imported from Wikipedia article "Pont de l'Alma" and modified on 22 July 2019 under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license.

Relevant Web Sites

Relevant Publications

More publications...
  • About this
    data sheet
  • Structure-ID
    20000230
  • Published on:
    09/05/1999
  • Last updated on:
    05/02/2016
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