On 11 July 2010, the joint venture group JF Hull / Albem opened the new Ted Smout Memorial Bridge to traffic, which crosses Bramble Bay at Redcliffe to the north of Brisbane.
With a length of 2.74km, it is the longest bridge that has ever been built in Australia, duplicating the length of the adjacent Houghton Highway bridge structure.
The joint venture designers and Main Roads Queensland selected the Granor Etic® EJ-300 cast aluminium finger joints to accommodate the large movements commensurate with such a long viaduct structure.
The EJ-300 model joints, capable of accommodating 300mm of total movement translation, were used at 15 different locations along the bridge structure (at every fifth span of the 78 spans, which are each 35m long).
The abutment locations utilised the smaller Granor Etic EJ-160 model, which have the same design. In total, Granor supplied over 200m of the specialist cast aluminium finger joints, which have been selected because of their durability and cost effectiveness.
The joints have been detailed with an optional ‘draped’ trough gland as the sealing membrane. The EJ series finger joints are also available with a higher located concertina ‘compression’ type sealing gland.
Due to its coastal location the joints at the Ted Smout Bridge were detailed and supplied with high-tensile, fully stainless steel fixings in lieu of the Etic system’s standard proprietary galvanised high-tensile fixings.
