The bridge is made up of two stand-alone structures, separated by an expansion joint, and forms part of the new Prague Ring Road transportation link. It is 200m long and 34m wide and will carry trams, four lanes of road traffic, pedestrians and cyclists.
Mott MacDonald prepared the preliminary tender and detailed design for the new bridge, which spans the Vltava River. The design consists of a steel tied arch featuring a network arrangement of suspender rods.
Radko Bucek, Mott MacDonald’s managing director for the Czech Republic, said: “Troja Bridge represents a major step forward in structural efficiency. By reconfiguring the hangers of the classic bowstring arch from a conventional vertical arrangement to a diagonal one, we have dramatically improved the bridge’s performance.”
The prestressed concrete bridge deck is suspended from the arch using two inclined planes of network hangers, which connect the arch to the two composite steel-concrete arch ties. This hangar arrangement provides four times the stiffness of a comparable tied arch using vertical suspender rods.
