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Manually calculating Superstructure Coordinate

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allenwalker

Civil/Environmental
Jun 18, 2018
3

Dear Sir(s),
I am new here so please be kind to me.
I am trying to manually calculate the superstructure coordinates (X, Y, Z values for the Girder line, CL, Stringers, etc. )of a Box-Girder bridge using the Station values, Longitudinal elevation and Transverse elevation data. Can anyone here direct me to some materials I could use to achieve the above or at least give me some idea on how to proceed. I would be very grateful.

Thank you.

AW

P.S. I have used the software, JIP-LINER, but the values are a little different in some portions. I wanted to verify it manually. Thank you.
 
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Typical surveying problem. I trust you know surveying trig.
Not sure what you got but you could probably run a traverse survey, northings and eastings etc, based on the bridge working line or whatever. A little more difficult if the bridge is on a curve so you may want to reduce this to a chord or?
 

@Buggar Thank you for your reply. I suppose it can be solved that way but the problem gets a lot taxing with varying curves in the horizontal elevation and also in the bridge plan. I was wondering if there was a sample calculation anywhere since I could find none. But I do appreciate your reply and will try it once, but it really is taxing.
 
In my experience, you have to separate the horizontal layout from the vertical layout - one has compound circular curves and the other parabolic. And the PI's, etc., never match. Other than this, yes it is taxing. I believe this is why they invented the Fridens and Marchants. Or do this work on a Kurta like back in the old days.
 
Typical Data Format is project coordinates X,Y,Z (easting, northing, elevation) and/or Station, Offset and Elevation.
If you have the bridge layout in CAD any data is straight forward to determine.
Many still use hard copy deck contours sheet printed at 1"=4' contours @ 0.02' (4 scale drawing) for grade determination.
Without CAD on a straight bridge with known coordinate "hubs" secondary coordinates would be easy to determine.
On a curved bridge would be time consuming and no fun.
Civil roadway software will give you everything you need quickly.
Knowing road profile and cross slope/super elevation there are spreads sheets to determine grades at any station and offset.
I'll attach one when it arrives. I have no experience using it as I always use CAD/Civil software to determine and document coordinate and grade data.
If your going to be doing this on regular basis I suggest Carlson Civil module is priced well, comes with a cad program very similar to Autocad and the learning curve is short.
 
 https://files.engineering.com/getfile.aspx?folder=ff002f89-af4d-4166-b8f4-a288e137b38e&file=PROCutsheet_.xlsx
Not a bad idea to spot check a few, but if you plan to verify all of them by hand I think you are opening yourself up to making errors with these types of tedious calculations
 
The IOWA DOT has various spreadsheets. I've never used any of their software, except for the culvert design software, but they may have something of use for you.

Link
 
correction to typo: Many still use hard copy deck contours sheet printed at 1"=4'(4 scale drawing) [highlight #FCE94F]contours @ 0.2'[/highlight] for grade determination.
 
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