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Viaduct over the glen of Lorupe

Viadukts pār Lorupes gravu
Viadukts pāri Lorupes ielejai (1978), 04.06.2011.
Customer:The Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic ministry of transportation and highway ministry
Year of designing: 1965-1966
Year of realisation: 1968

The idea of building a road to cross the ravine was conceived in the 1950s and 1960s, when a small-radius (70-250 m) road with a very steep rise and fall (5-6%) profile was traced around a mill near Lorupe. The story goes that the miller had a beautiful daughter and, having fallen in love with her, the engineer road-router deliberately twisted this section of the road. With the development of car traffic, crossing the Lorupe ravine, especially in winter, was quite unpleasant.

Professor Kārlis Gailis of the Latvian State University said that several generations of engineers had worked on the reconstruction of the Lorupe ravine. The former Department of Highways and Earth Roads has a very large file.

In drawing up the design brief, it was a hard fought battle with the authorities and engineers who wanted to solve the problem by filling in the 200 m wide and 30 m deep ravine with soil. This would have required about 200 000 cubic metres of soil and the construction of a 140 m long culvert to cross the river. Extracting this amount of soil from nearby quarries would destroy the magnificent landscape.

The experimental construction of the Lorupe Viaduct aroused great interest among engineers in the USSR and also in Germany. In Germany, probably because the author of the Riokaroni Bridge project, the German Professor F. Leonhard, included material on the Lorupe Viaduct in German bridge textbooks. The construction site of the Lorupe Viaduct was frequently visited by specialists from the Ministry of Transport Construction of the USSR, as well as by scientists.

The viaduct is also remarkable because it made history as the first bridge in Latvia and in the entire territory of the former USSR to be assembled using the longitudinal sliding method. This example determined the choice of the general design of the viaduct's span and the assembly technology. The viaduct over the Lorupe ravine is a five-span continuous beam of 33 m + 3 x 43.25 m + 33 m on flexible piers up to 24 m high. The total length of the bridge is 195,75 m.

The project manager was Ziedonis Vecvagars. The design work was carried out by engineers H.Nartišs, L.Jostiņš, J.Lapainis, J.Zavickis, I.Jurka, U.Matīss, architect V.Reifelde and technician G.Zirnis.

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Ceļuprojekts

Phone: (+371) 67 840 581
E-mail: info@celuprojekts.lv
Construction merchant reg. No. 1755-R

Details

AS "Ceļuprojekts"
Murjanu street 7A, Riga, LV-1024
Reg. No. 40003026637
VAT payer reg. No. LV40003026637

Bank accounts:
LV 36 HABA 0551 0031 3334 2
LV 88 RIKO 0000 0800 2536 4

How to find us

AS "Ceļuprojekts" building place is easy to find - Riga, Jugla around 400m away from the Brivibas Street. At the entrance courtyard to the street Murjanu placed in a large, easily visible indication. Parking is free. 

© 2022 Ceļuprojekts

Murjanu street 7A, Riga, LV-1024 | cp@celuprojekts.lv | (+371) 67 840 581

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  • Home
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    • About the company
    • History of the company
  • Services
    • Design management
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    • Geotechnical and geological research, geotechnical laboratory
    • Supervision of the construction work
    • Expert-examination of the building designs
    • Printing and archive
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