Birchenough Bridge, Steel through-arch road bridge over the Save River in Chipinge, Zimbabwe
Birchenough Bridge is a two-lane road bridge over the Save River, formed by two parabolic steel lattice arches that lean inward and are joined by diagonal cross-bracing. The trusses are 14 m deep at the base and narrow to 11.4 m at the crown; the arch rises 66 m and spans 329 m, with the deck hung from wire cables. The whole structure is 378 m long.
Funded by the Beit Trust with £145,000 and named after its chairman Sir Henry Birchenough, whose ashes lie beneath the structure, the bridge was designed by Ralph Freeman, also structural designer of Sydney Harbour Bridge. Dorman Long completed it in 1935 as a 329 m span, then the third longest single-arch bridge in the world. In 1984 the World Bank's Highway Project One widened the roadway from 7.2 m to 10 m and strengthened it.
The bridge carries the road between Chipinge and Buhera, about 62 km from Chipinge, and also links Mutare with Masvingo. A 25-tonne load limit set by the Department of Roads keeps heavier trucks off, so expect lighter traffic. The roadway is 10 m wide after the 1984 widening, and clearance over the Save is 15.2 m in the dry season.
The bridge was probably the first to have models tested in a wind tunnel before construction. It was built by Dorman Long using the free-cantilever method from the banks, and the cables used to stay the projecting arch sections had already served on the Sydney Harbour Bridge; after the arch closed they became the hangers carrying the deck.
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