The Salamanca city council with its TORMES + Plan for Sustainable and Integrated Urban Development established a strategy to enhance the value of the river Tormes, its banks and the Salas Bajas area as an active resource for the city as a whole. Within this strategic plan it was intended to materialize a new pedestrian and cyclable footbridge that will connect the neighbourhoods of Tejares and Huerta Otea over the river Tormes.
The design proposed for this project consists of an extradosed footbridge with a double bracing plane on each side of the deck, integrated by two stayed cables per plane. The total length of the walkway is 167 m, distributed in 5 spans of 25+ 39+ 39+ 39 + 25 m, with a useful width of 5 m that are extended to 7 meters in the sections adjacent to the abutments.
The cross section is made up of two lateral box girders 66 cm wide and 79 cm deep, made of steel and trapezoidal in shape. Between these beams or edge ribs, there are transverse diaphragms 2.60 m apart, with a double T section and variable depth, being the maximum 36cm. The tie rods to the deck are anchored through the outer web of the lateral ribs.
The footbridge has 4 piers in the riverbed with V shape and an upper crossbar located at mid-height that allows the deck to be supported by means of bearing devices made of neoprene. These piers, which rise 5.25 m above the deck level, also serve as an anchor point for the tie rods. The masts have been designed as a closed section of steel, with a trapezoidal shape with a variable depth, which are embedded in a reinforced concrete shaft with an octagonal section also with a variable.
