11 BEST ENGINEERING FACTS ABOUT BOGIBEEL BRIDGE

Bogibeel bridge is the fully welded bridge in Indian railways. This is a rail-cum-road bridge which spans 4.94 km over the Brahmaputra river.

The construction of bogibeel bridge is taken care by HCC.

IMAGE SOURCE: HCC

On 2nd December 2018, India's first Fully welded bridge (Bogibeel bridge) opened as the first freight train crossed it.

The construction of the Indian railway's first fully welded bridge has been inaugurated in 2002 by Pm A.B. Vajpayee.

But due to many reasons, the construction work postponed until 2007.

It is also the longest rail-cum-road bridge in India.

The Bogibeel bridge spans the Brahmaputra river. It is the 3rd longest bridge in India and the largest one over the Brahmaputra.

This bogibeel bridge is constructed by Hindustan construction company(HCC) in the Dibrugarh district of Assam.

It provides the connection between Dibrugarh in the south to the Lakhimpur in the north.

The bridge is nothing less than a blessing for people who travels to the north-east region by 165 km saving fuel worth rupees 10 lakh per day in that particular region.

The key objectives of Bogibeel bridge

IMAGE SOURCE: THE FINANCIAL EXPRESS

The first and foremost aim was to connect lesser developed region of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh in the north bank to the south bank of the river Brahmaputra.

The second most important benefit from the bridge is that the capability of Indian defense will be enhanced by the bogibeel bridge.

By using the bridge fast movement of troops and supplies to Arunachal Pradesh which borders China.

It is designed in such a way that even a fighter jet can land on it in case of emergency.

Here we have discussed the 11 best engineering facts about the bogibeel bridge.

The bogibeel bridge is a double-decked bridge having two railway tracks on the lower and three-way road on the upper deck flanged by footpaths on each side.
The actual cost of the entire construction is nearly 5920 crore (US$830 million) but the estimated sanctioned cost was 3230 crore.
The welded steel-concrete structure can withstand earthquakes of magnitudes up to 7 Richter scales.
Total steel used in the construction of India's 2nd longest rail cum road bridge in India is 78,000 metric tonne which is equivalent to 10 Eiffel tower's weight.
The construction of the Bogibeel bridge took 30 lakh bags of cement which is enough to fill more than 41 Olympic swimming pools.
The design life of the bridge is expected 120 years.
The span of the bridge is 4.94 Km which will down the distance to the border with China by 10 hours.
As it is a totally welded, total length of welding 900Kms which is equivalent to circling the moon 1.5 times.
The three-way lane road at the upper deck is constructed by RCC.
The total length of the bridge is achieved by joining 39 spans of 125m.
Superior quality enhanced hydraulic jacks are used to pull span weigh about 1700 metric tonne-equivalent to pulling 26 Airbus A380 without any wheels.

Challenges occurred while construction

1. At the construction area, high intensive rainfall occurs frequently. This badly affected the rate of work. Due to bad weather construction work stopped many times.

2. Supplying Concrete throughout the span was also a huge problem. Huge pumping equipment is used in this process.

3. It was very difficult to bring trusses from the manufacturing unit to the construction site.

To resolve this problem three units are also built near the site- Fabrication, Assembly and Launching unit.

Other details about construction

We know that this is India's first fully welded bridge, so it is necessary to provide high welding strength and error-free welding.

Gas metal arc welding, Gnaw or saw welding are used to ensure error-free which further passes three major →Dye penetrating testing, ultrasonic testing, Magnetic particle testing.

IMAGE SOURCE: THE TIMES OF INDIA

As Engineers, we are proud of the new icon of India-Bogibeel bridge. Now the bridge is ready to serve India in the many years to come.

CIVIL ENGINEERING

11 BEST ENGINEERING FACTS ABOUT BOGIBEEL BRIDGE