Concepción y proyecto del puente ferroviario extradosado Salto del Carnero de Zaragoza-Delicias

Structural concept and design for the extradosed Salto del Carnero railway bridge at Delicias Station, Zaragoza

The ideas underlying the conceptual design for the Salto del Carnero railway bridge spanning eight tracks, including the Madrid-Barcelona high speed railway, in very close proximity to the Saragossa Delicias station, are described in the article. A consistent conceptual design is of crucial importance with a view to obtain a reliable, functional, cost-effective and, at the same time, aesthetically attractive structure. A strain-oriented, elastic-plastic procedure was deployed for the analysis and design of the composite bridge. This method not only allows a separate treatment of action-effects and strength of a structure but also to evaluate its ductility with a sufficient degree of accuracy to design structures exhibiting a ductile behaviour. The stress field method has been used for designing structural discontinuities, enabling the engineer to map forces through the structure and to develop joints and corners in accordance with their expected behaviour. Finally, the paper includes a few comments about the construction of the overpass.