A1.2-km-long viaduct featuring a novel, 4.5-m-deep composite deck box girder with steel tube webs designed to enhance prestressing efficiency and save weight is nearing completion in France. The $50-million Meaux Viaduct 40 km east of Paris is part of the government's bridge innovation program. As Paris-based contractor Razel S.A. advances the deck by a span every two weeks, bright paintwork highlights the unusual steelwork. Green deck box sides are comprised of roughly 51-cm-dia vertical tubes, set just over 1,5 m apart and linked by welded plates up to 2.5 cm thick. The tubes are embedded near the edges of the 13-m-wide concrete base and into the 31-m-wide top slab. Outside the box, blue tubes lean out from the bottom corners to prop up edges of the 22-cm-thick top slab.
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