Chirajara Beam Bridge

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Chirajara Beam Bridge
Viaducto Chirajara
Guayabetal, Cundinamarca, Colombia
295 feet high / 90 meters high
308 foot span / 94 meter span
1995

ChirajaraBeamPiers.jpg


Chirajara Bridge is a high beam bridge that crosses a major creek that flows into the great Rio Negro River gorge along the Bogota-Villavicencio highway. The bridge alignment curves nearly 90 degrees from one end of the bridge to the other. The 2-lane deck is supported on two steel girders in a box beam configuration that traverses 4 spans, the longest extending 309 feet (94 mtrs) between piers. The foundation of pier 1 extends approximately 148 feet (45 mtrs) underground.

In 2024 a second Chirajara beam bridge opened next to the original curving beam span with a height of 156 meters and a main span of 192 meters.

Originally the second Chirajara Bridge was supposed to be a cable stayed span of 286 meters but during construction a tragic accident occurred during construction causing half of the structure to collapse.

Thia sad construction accident that forever tarnished the once perfect track record of zero cable stayed bridge collapses stretching back more then 60 years to the first modern cable stayed span from 1957.

On January 15, 2018, the entire west side of the nearly finished Chirajara Bridge collapsed into the gorge killing 10 construction workers. After an investigation, engineers discovered that the horizontal connection within the diamond-shaped towers was insufficiently designed with a minimal number of prestressing cables. Incorrect calculations were also made about the lateral strength of the concrete diaphragm wall that connected the lower V-shaped legs of the towers.

Completed in 2002, the 122 meter high Pipiral Bridge is the second highest span along the Bogota-Villavicencio route and is located about 10 kilometers to the east of Chirajara.


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Chirajara Beam Bridge Elevation


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Image by Jimmy Acosta.


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Second Chirajara Bridge render.


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Original Chirajara Bridge render with the diamond shaped towers.


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The Chirajara cable stayed bridge after the West tower and deck collapsed in 2018.


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Chirajara Bridge satellite image.


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Chirajara Bridge location map.


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