Construction Equipment for Concrete Box Girder Bridges

Over the last 20 years, concrete box girders have become one of the most economically and esthetically attractive segments for the construction of bridges with spans between 200 and 500 ft (60 and 150 m). The introduction of specialized construction equipment that can be rented and reused on different bridge projects has helped to increase the popularity of box girders. Bridge builders typically spent millions of dollars for construction machinery that was scrapped once the job was completed. Now, with the incorporation of detailed designs for construction equipment into the bridge design process itself, concrete box girder construction has become far more economical, more accurate and faster. Construction methods for these bridges are in three major categories: balanced cantilever, span-by-span, and incremental launching. This article describes construction equipment specially developed for the balanced cantilever and span-by-span methods.