Motorway Bridges Built form Precast Elements

Croatia is among the biggest construction sites in Europe. As a result of enormous efforts of all parties in construction - clients, designers, contractors and supervisors, in June 2003 approximately 150 kilometers of modern motorways were opened to traffic. Big construction projects such as this (which is only a part of the Croatian Motorway Project) impose unified type of structures that have to be designed and constructed. Mostly short deadlines force designers and contractors to use industrialized and typified solutions for these structures. Based on design and construction practice, this paper will show some observations concerning primarily precast girders, describing phases from their production to construction of different types of structures such as bridges, viaducts, overpasses etc. It will also describe some solutions of optimization of precast element production process and its organizational incorporation into the process of bridge construction. Different type of girders used, according to chosen structural system will be shown. Emphasis will be given to choice of details on bridges (i.e. bearings, expansion joints) since these are the parts that have to be designed and placed properly in order to remain safe and durable structures. Intention of this paper is also to give some observations on aesthetics of structures built from precast elements.