(worlds highest Bridge!!)مرتفع ترین پل جهان که حتی از برج ایفل هم بلندتر است

Official name	Le Viaduc de Millau
Carries
Crosses	valley of the River Tarn
Locale	Millau, France
Design	Cable-Stayed
Longest span	342 m (1,122 ft)
Total length	2,460 metres (8,071 ft)
Width	32 m (105 ft)
Clearance below	270 m (886 ft) at maximum
Opening date	December 14, 2004

The world's highest road

bridge has been inaugurated in southern France by President Jacques Chirac.

The Millau bridge over the River Tarn in the Massif Central mountains is more than 300m (984ft) high - taller even than the country's Eiffel Tower.

The bridge, which opens to traffic on Thursday, was built to clear summer traffic jams around the town.

The BBC's Paris correspondent, Caroline Wyatt, says the bridge is one of the most breathtaking ever built.

She says that with its concrete and steel pillars soaring high above the morning fog in the Tarn Valley, the construction makes a spectacular sight.

Delicacy of a butterfly'

Seven slender piers support the roadway, rising into seven graceful pylons bound to the bridge with what look like cobwebs of steel, our correspondent says.

"The bridge is just on the clouds," Millau Mayor Jacques Godfrain told the BBC's World Today programme.

"The architect, Norman Foster, gave us a model of art."

Mr Foster said the bridge was designed to have the "delicacy of a butterfly".

"A work of man must fuse with nature. The pillars had to look almost organic, like they had grown from the earth," the world-renowned British architect said in an interview with regional daily newspaper Midi Libre.

Like Concorde and the Channel Tunnel, the bridge is Franco-British.

French construction group Eiffage - that built the Eiffel Tower - financed the project in return for the right to collect receipts from a bridge toll for 75 years.

The bridge is now a source of pride for Millau, which believes many more tourists will come to admire one of the engineering wonders of the 21st Century, our correspondent says.

The construction also removes a bottleneck at the town, completing a new motorway link between Paris and the Mediterranean.

The construction of the steel bridge - now weighing about 36,000 tonnes - began in December 2001, using innovative techniques.

From the north and south sides of the valley, the metal sections of the structure were assembled, lifted slightly and then carefully slotted into place on each of the supporting pillars.

Motorists are expected to pay 4.6 euros (£3.18; $5.60) for a trip across the bridge.

پل جدید دبی

Here are the latest renderings plus recent construction shots of Sheikh Zayed Bridge, a major infrastructure project that will connect Abu Dhabi to the other Emirates on the mainland.



The project is designed by architect Zaha Hadid, who is on the advisory panel of the International Design Forum and will speak at the event in Dubai between 27 and 29 May।

Below is a full project description from the architect:

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RISING FROM THE DUNES

The UAE has a highly mobile society that requires a new route around the Gulf South shore, connecting Abu Dhabi city and the highways to other emirates, notably Dubai and the Northern Emirates। In 1967 a steel arch bridge was built to connect the fledgling city of Abu Dhabi island, to the mainland followed by a second bridge built in the seventies, connecting downstream at the south side of Abu Dhabi Island।

The location of the new (third) Gateway Crossing, close to the first bridge, is critical in the development and completion of the highway system. Conceived in an open setting, the bridge has the prospect of becoming a destination in itself and a potential catalyst in the future urban growth at the mainland tip of Abu Dhabi Island. The need for a third crossing to Abu Dhabi Island was first realised 10 years ago at a time when the two other bridge

s – the four-lane Maqta Bridge and the six-lane Mussafa Bridge - provided access to the capital.

In 1994 engineers were first invited to submit tenders for the new crossing, and after re-tenders and re-submissions and a design competition High-Point Rendel’s tender was selected as the most favourable। By 1997 the Client - the Works Department of Abu Dhabi - decided that the Gateway Bridge would be a ‘landmark Structure’ and invited architect Zaha Hadid to submit proposals. Zaha Hadid’s special architectural design for the bridge makes for a challenging assignment.




A collection, or strands of structures, gathered on the shore, are lifted and ‘propelled’ over the length of the channel। A sinusoidal waveform provides the structural silhouette shape across the channel। The mainland is the “launch pad” for the bridge structure emerging from the ground । The road decks are cantilevered on each side of the rising and falling spine structure. Steel arches rise and spring from concrete piers laid asymmetrically, in length, between the road decks. The main bridge arch structure rises to a height of 60m above water level with the road crowning at 20m above mean water level.



The geometry of the steel arches and the concrete piers made it necessary to develop a highly detailed computer model of the bridge in order to determine its behaviour। S tructural Engineers COWI, hired by the Client to independently check if the bridge fulfils the design requirements, have used the Integrated Bridge Design and Analysis System (IBDAS) programme developed by them. IBDAS is a unique programme that allows 3D analysis models to be developed based on detailed geometric models of the bridge – including arches and girders.

In addition, the programme features a wide range of analysis procedures for verification of the effects of e।g. earthquakes, strong winds, ship collisions and heavy traffic crossing the bridge. The bridge is about 61m in width and 842m in length, with a central steel arch span of 234m, with their cross-sections measuring up to 6m x 8m. The central pier alone contains enough concrete to cover a football pitch to a height of five metres.



The first phase involved the 3.8km approach to the bridge from the Dubai road on the Mainland and included a 350m seven-span viaduct as well as a 200m two-lane link viaduct. The second phase, scheduled to end this year, provides the 2.8km link to the bridge from the Eastern Ring Road on Abu Dhabi Island, and includes a 280m five-span and a further 300m five-span link viaduct. The 1.4 km section of the three-part scheme, costing US$ 175m, involves the crossings of the Maqta channel and includes the main gateway bridge with an overall length of 845m. The new crossing which will provide a four-lane dual carriageway with two hard shoulders and pedestrian walkways has been designed to the recently published AASHTO LRFD standard.