One of the main wonders of the industrial world of France can be safely attributed to the world famous Millau Bridge, which is the owner of several records at once. Thanks to this giant bridge, stretching over the huge valley of the river called Tar, smooth and high-speed movement is provided from the capital of France, Paris, to the small town of Béziers.
Many tourists who come to see this highest bridge in the world often ask themselves the question: "Why was it necessary to build such an expensive and technically complex bridge that leads from Paris to the very small city of Béziers?"
The thing is that it is in Beziers that a huge number of educational institutions, elite private schools and a retraining center for highly qualified specialists are located.
A huge number of Parisians enter these schools and colleges, as well as residents from other large cities in France, who are attracted by the elitism of education in Béziers. In addition, the town of Beziers is located just 12 kilometers from the picturesque coast of the warm Mediterranean Sea, which, of course, in turn, also cannot fail to attract tens of thousands of tourists from all over the world every year.
Pont Millau, which can rightly be considered the pinnacle of the skill of engineers and architects, is popular among travelers as one of the most interesting sights of France. Firstly, it offers a magnificent view of the Thar River valley, and secondly, it is one of the favorite objects for modern photographers. Photos of the Mijo Bridge, which is almost two and a half kilometers long and 32 meters wide, made by the best and most authoritative photographers, adorn numerous office buildings and hotels not only in France, but throughout the Old World.
The bridge is a particularly fantastic sight when clouds gather under it: at this moment it seems as if the viaduct is suspended in the air and does not have a single support under it. The height of the bridge above the ground at its highest point is just over 270 meters. The Miillau Viaduct was built with the sole purpose of relieving the number of national highway number 9, which was constantly congested during the season, and tourists traveling in France, as well as truck drivers, were forced to idle for hours in congestion.
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As mentioned above, the bridge, which is part of the A75 highway, connects Paris and the city of Béziers, but it is quite often used by motorists who travel to the capital of the country from Spain and southern France. It should be noted that the passage through the viaduct, which "soars above the clouds," is paid, which does not in the least affect its popularity among vehicle drivers and guests of the country who came to see one of the most amazing wonders of the industrial world.
The legendary Mihaud viaduct, which every self-respecting bridge builder knows about and which is considered a model of technological progress for all mankind, was designed by Michel Virlazho and the brilliant architect Norman Foster. For those who are not familiar with the work of Norman Foster, it should be clarified that this talented English engineer, knighted and baroned by the Queen of Great Britain, not only recreated, but also introduced a number of new unique solutions to the Berlin Reichstag. It was thanks to his painstaking work, precisely calibrated calculations that the main symbol of the country was literally revived from the ashes in Germany. Naturally, Norman Foster's talent made the Millau viaduct one of the modern wonders of the world.
In addition to the British architect, a group called "Eiffage", which includes the famous Eiffel workshop, which designed and built one of the main attractions of Paris, took part in the work on the creation of the highest transport artery in the world. By and large, the talent of Eiffel and the staff from his bureau erected not only the "calling card" of Paris, but also the whole of France. In a harmonious tandem, the Eiffage group, Norman Foster and Michel Virlageau designed the Millau Bridge, which was inaugurated on December 14, 2004.
Already 2 days after the festive event, the first cars drove along the final link of the A75 highway. An interesting fact is that the first stone in the construction of the viaduct was laid on December 14, 2001 only, and the start of large-scale construction started on December 16, 2001. Apparently, the plans of the builders were to coincide the date of the opening of the bridge with the date of the beginning of its construction.
Despite a group of the best architects and engineers, it was extremely difficult to build the tallest road transport bridge in the world. By and large, there are two more bridges on our planet that are located above Millau above the earth's surface: the Royal Gorge Bridge in the United States in Colorado (321 meters above the ground) and the Chinese bridge connecting the two banks of the Syduhe River. True, in the first case, we are talking about a bridge that can only be crossed by pedestrians, and in the second, about a viaduct, the supports of which are located on a plateau and their height cannot be compared with the supports and pylons of Millau. It is for these reasons that the French bridge Millau is considered the most difficult in terms of design and the highest road bridge in the world.
Some of the pillars of the final link A75 are located at the bottom of the gorge that separates the “red plateau” and the Lazarka plateau. To make the bridge completely safe, the French engineers had to develop each support separately: almost all of them are of different diameters and are clearly designed for a specific load. The width of the largest pillar of the bridge reaches almost 25 meters at its base. True, in the place where the support is connected to the roadway, its diameter is noticeably narrowed.
The workers and architects who developed the project had to face a whole host of difficulties during construction work. Firstly, it was necessary to strengthen the places in the gorge where the supports were located, and secondly, it was necessary to spend quite a lot of time on the transportation of individual parts of the canvas, its supports and pylons. One has only to imagine that the main support of the bridge consists of 16 sections, the weight of each of them is 2,300 (!) Tons. Running a little ahead, I would like to note that this is one of the records that belongs to the Pont de Millau.
Naturally, there are no vehicles in the world that could deliver such massive parts of the pillars of the Millau Bridge. For this reason, the architects decided to deliver parts of the supports in parts (if one can say so of course). Each piece weighed about 60 tons. It is quite difficult to even imagine how much time it took for the builders only to deliver 7 (!) Supports to the bridge construction site, and this is not counting the fact that each support has a pylon slightly more than 87 meters high, to which 11 pairs of high-strength cables are attached.
However, the delivery of building materials to the site was not the only challenge the engineers faced. The thing is that the Tar River valley has always been distinguished by a harsh climate: heat, quickly changing to piercing cold, sharp gusts of wind, steep cliffs - only a small part of what the builders of the majestic French viaduct had to overcome. There is official evidence that the development of the project and numerous studies lasted just over 10 (!) Years. Works on the construction of the Mihaud Bridge were completed in such difficult conditions, one might even say, in record time: it took the builders and other services 4 years to bring the idea of Norman Foster, Michel Virlageau and the architects from the Eiffage group to life.
The roadbed of the Millau bridge, like its project itself, is innovative: in order to avoid deformation of expensive metal sheets, which will be quite difficult to repair in the future, scientists had to invent an ultra-modern asphalt concrete formula. The metal canvases are quite strong, but their weight, relative to the entire giant structure, can be called insignificant ("only" 36,000 tons). The coating was supposed to protect the canvases from deformation (be "soft") and at the same time meet all the requirements of European standards (resist deformation, be used for a long time without repair and prevent so-called "shifts"). It is simply impossible for even the most modern technologies to solve this problem in a short time. During the construction of the bridge, the composition of the roadbed was developed for almost three years. By the way, the asphalt concrete of the Millau bridge is recognized as unique in its kind.
Pont Millau - harsh criticism
Despite the lengthy development of the plan, well-thought-out decisions and the big names of architects, the construction of the viaduct initially drew sharp criticism. By and large, in France, any construction is sharply criticized, recall at least the Sacre Coeur Basilica and the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Opponents of the construction of the viaduct said that the bridge would be unreliable due to shifts at the bottom of the gorge; will never pay off; the use of such technologies on the A75 highway is unjustified; the bypass road will reduce the flow of tourists to the city of Millau. This is just a small part of the slogans with which the ardent opponents of the construction of the new viaduct addressed the government. They were listened to and for every negative appeal to the public was given an authoritative explanation. In fairness, we note that opponents, including influential associations,they did not calm down and continued their protest actions almost all the time while the bridge was being built.
Pont Millau - a revolutionary solution
According to the most conservative estimates, the construction of the most famous French viaduct took at least 400 million euros. Naturally, this money had to be returned, so the passage along the viaduct was paid: the point where you can pay for the "trip through the miracle of modern industry" is located not far from the small village of Saint-Germain. More than 20 million euros were spent on its construction alone. The payment station has a huge covered shed, which took 53 giant beams to build. During the “season”, when the flow of cars along the viaduct increases sharply, additional lanes are used, which, by the way, are at the “checkpoint” 16. There is also an electronic system at this point that allows tracking the number of cars on the bridge and their tonnage. By the way, the term of the Eiffage concession will last only 78 years,that is how much time the state allocated to the group to cover its expenses.
Most likely, it will not even be possible to recover all the Eiffage funds spent on construction. However, the group looks at such unfavorable financial forecasts with a grain of irony. Firstly, "Eiffage" is far from poor, and secondly, the Millau bridge served as another proof of the genius of its specialists. By the way, the talk that the companies that built the bridge will lose money is nothing more than fiction. Yes, the bridge was not built at the expense of the state, but after 78 years, if the bridge does not bring profit to the group, France will be obliged to pay the losses. But if “Eiffage manages to earn 375 million euros on the Miillau viaduct sooner than 78 years later, the bridge will become the property of the country free of charge. The concession period will last, as mentioned above, 78 years (until 2045), but the group of companies has given a guarantee on its majestic bridge for 120 years.
Traveling on the four-lane highway of the Millau Viaduct is not worth the "sky-high" sums, as many might think. Traveling a car along the viaduct, the height of the main pillar of which is higher than the Eiffel Tower itself (!) And only slightly lower than the Empire State Building, will cost only 6 euros (7.70 euros in the "season"). But for two-axle trucks, the fare will be already 21.30 euros; for three axles - almost 29 euros. Even motorcyclists and people who travel along the viaduct on scooters have to pay: the cost of a trip on the Mijo Bridge will cost them 3 euros and 90 euro cents.
The Viaduct Millau bridge comprises an eight-span steel road supported by eight steel pillars. The weight of the roadbed is 36,000 tons, width - 32 meters, length - 2,460 meters, depth - 4.2 meters. The length of all six central spans is 342 meters, and the two outer ones are 204 meters long each. A road with a slight slope - 3%, descends from the south side to the north, its curvature is 20 km radius in order to give drivers a better view. The movement of transport occurs in two lanes in all directions. The height of the columns ranges from 77 to 246 meters, the diameter of one of the longest columns is 24.5 meters at the base, and eleven meters at the roadbed. Each base has sixteen sections.
One section weighs 2,230 tons. The sections were assembled on site from individual parts. Each individual section of the section has a mass of sixty tons, seventeen meters long and four meters wide. Each support must support pylons that are 97 meters high. First, the columns were assembled, which were together with temporary supports, then parts of the canvas moved along the supports with the help of jacks. The jacks were controlled from satellites. The canvases moved six hundred millimeters in four minutes.