Project Description:
The Shimmick/Traylor/Granite joint-venture team, partnered with Parsons Corporation and SYSTRA International Bridge Technologies, were awarded the $875M contract to build the third phase of the 20-mile rail system in Honolulu. This phase will include over five miles of elevated rail line and four stations set to sit upon R.J. Watson Disktron Bearings.
The nature of this design-build project resulted in the need to engineer, manufacture, and deliver highly customized bearings in several segments. The first segment consists of 60 Disktron bearings, ranging in vertical service loads of 740 to 1085 kips. Several Disktron bearing types were utilized, including fixed, longitudinally-guided, transversely-guided, and multidirectional bearings. Guided and non-guided expansion bearings were designed to accommodate between two and 19” of movement. All bearings were designed to handle service rotations between 0.015 and 0.03 radians. Challenges that were presented included high horizontal service loads (over 40% of the vertical service loads in some locations) and the need to accommodate occasional uplift forces were accepted and solved by the R.J. Watson engineering team.