Design methodology for Roads Bridges located on Chilean copper miner roads

The Manual de Carreteras is the code for the design, construction, and maintenance of road bridges in Chile. This code is applied on highways defining requirements to ensure strength, security, and comfort of the structures and users. Despite this, several roads are located in the zone with special design and operational requirements, for example, productive industries such as Ports, Airports, Forrest extraction, and mining. For that structure, a specific code review and application of particulars requirements have to be considered.

This paper reviews the design issues of a road bridge located on a Chilean copper mine, located in the central zone of the country, in a high elevation over mean seas level and high-temperature variation. First, the proposal design considers the Manual de Carreteras code and the specific loads and geometric design in order to match with the mine production requirements. Finally, a case of study is presented with a proposal design including special truckloads (overweight loads), safety requirement of barrier and solution of clearance, as a guideline for future designs of these structures in the country.

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