Walter Yu, P.E., LEED AP

Connecting France to Spain and tall as the Eiffel Tower!

Nothing captures the mind of a civil engineer as much as bridges and skyscrapers. It’s the dream of every civil (as we call ourselves) to design and build things that reach for sky, defy gravity and take our breath away.

One such example is the Millau Viaduct Bridge completed across the River Tarn in France, creating a direct route between Paris with Spain.

According to the project Architect, Foster + Partners, the cable-stayed bridge contains columns between 75 to 245m in height (the tallest being equivalent to the height of the Eiffel Tower).

From an engineering perpsective, the engineers with the French Ministry of Equipment, Transport, Housing, Tourism and Sea had two possible alignments for the bridge, either by land or by sea.

The design team chose the breath-taking route by sea while keeping aesthetics in mind. The slender super-structure and columns were designed to minimize the impact to the surrounding landscape. Such aesthetic affects require engineering ingenuity on the part of the designers to maximize the deck spans and minimize column/deck size.

When structures grow to be such a towering size, even small physical reactions such as thermal expansion can impact the design in a big way. In this case, each column is seperated into A-frame columns with additional expansion joints built into the bridge deck.

Overall, the bridge is an excellent reminder of the marvels of civil engineer and captures the mind of those still practicing our trade in the field.