Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Highlands and Islands
Date 2007
Event ID 931731
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/931731
(Institute Civil Engineers Historic Engineering Works no. HEW 2536)
Kessock Bridge
Kessock Bridge carries the A9 trunk road over the Beauly Firth between Inverness and the Black Isle replacing the former ferry. When built from 1978–82 it was the largest cable-stayed bridge in Europe and the only one of its type in Britain. Its design is said to have been modelled on the Rees Bridge over the Rhine near Dusseldorf.
The navigation span is 787 ft and is supported by groups of eight spiral-strand steel cables up to 3934 in. diameter in a harp arrangement. The steel superstructure is fully continuous over the supports and the open cross-section comprises 1112 ft deep plate girders supporting an orthotropic steel deck. The tender sum was £17.24 million.
An unusual feature of the design is the need to accommodate possible movement on the Great Glen fault at the north abutment. This is achieved by means of two 394 ton hydraulic buffers.
The bridge was designed for the Scottish Development Dept by Dr Helmut Homberg in association with Cleveland Bridge & Engineering who were also the steel contractors. The consulting engineers were Crouch & Hogg and Ove Arup. The foundations and reinforced concrete work were
executed by RDL Contracting Ltd.
R Paxton and J Shipway, 2007.
Reproduced from 'Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Highlands and Islands' with kind permission from Thomas Telford Publishers.
