Over the weekend, the Pulaski Skyway Contract 8B project achieved another major milestone. The four trusses and three floor beams in Span 55 were successfully jacked to unload the existing rocker bents/links for their replacement. As a result of the resulting imbalance, the adjacent Span 56 required temporary strengthening. However, conventional shoring towers could not be used in Span 56 due to the presence of underlying landfills and an aquifer. To address this, bottom tension ties were installed and jacked to lift up (camber) the trusses before beginning work in Span 56, effectively creating a 200-foot-long hybrid truss/arch structure. All operations proceeded smoothly, with actual jacking forces and deflections remaining within 15% of the predicted values from finite element analysis.
Credits:
* NJDOT (Bridge Owner)
* Skanska USA Civil (General Contractor)
* GPI (Engineer of Permanent Structures)
* CHI Consulting Engineers (Engineer for Jacking and Support Systems)
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