City of Dublin Pedestrian & Bicycle Bridge Construction Complete
Construction is complete on the City of Dublin Pedestrian & Bicycle Bridge linking the east and west sides of the Scioto River in Dublin, Ohio. The new “S” shaped bridge, spanning 760 feet long and 14 feet wide is a Dublin landmark, representing inclusivity and connectivity.
RJ Watson worked with the consulting engineer, T.Y.Lin International, and the general contractor, Kokosing Construction to design and manufacture the Disktron bearings for the City of Dublin Department of Transportation-owned structure.
The designer chose to use the disc bearings to handle the uplift loads on the bridge, as opposed to external tie-downs, or post-tensioning. Therefore, eight out of the nine disc bearings used on this project were designed to resist uplift loads. One particular disc bearing was designed for 90 kips of vertical service load, 219 kips of horizontal service load, and 346 kips of uplift service load! On average, the disc bearings had a vertical service load of 38 – 431 kips, a horizontal service load 20% – 244% of the vertical load, a service upload lift of 20% – 384% of the vertical load, and a service rotation of 0.015 – 0.020 radians. The bearings allow a range of 3.5” to 8” of longitudinal displacement, and 0.125” to 0.25” of transverse displacement. Construction of the new single-tower suspension bridge began in February 2017 and was completed in the Spring of 2020.