Saturday, April 25, 2015

V = Viaduct, The Millau, French Faves - A to Z Challenge 2015

In southern France, near Millau, there is a bridge called the Millau Viaduct, or the Millau Sky Bridge. 


Millau Viaduct, Millau, France - WC*-GNU License

Why is it called Sky Bridge? Why not? The viaduct seems to float so very high in the sky. The bridge is a time-saver and a view protector, designed to fit into the view, rather than obstruct it. The Millau Viaduct spans the valley of the River Tarn and provides a quicker way to cross the distance between Paris and Barcelona, Spain. It is the world's tallest and longest cable-stay designed bridge, amazing the world with its new inventions and techniques.  

Construction began in October 2001, and since then, the bridge has been consistently ranked as one of the great engineering achievements of all time. Sky Bridge was contracted to alleviate traffic problems during the holidays. This viaduct was inaugurated on December 14, 2004, and opened to traffic on December 16, 2004. The cost was 400 million Euros, approximately.

The huge piers, 340 metres high, surpasses the height of the Eiffel Tower and were positioned to millimetre accuracy using the same system that locates lost nuclear submarines. See diagram which follows




Comparing the highest Pier (P2) of the Millau Viaduct with the Eiffel Tower
CC* - 
Roulex_45

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In June 2010, Richard Hammond of Top Gear, featured this magnificent structure in hi“Engineering Connections” BBC TV program

Youtube about the Millau Viaduct:
Scroll down the page to the Millau Sky Bridge video at the link below.

http://www.azsfrance.com/midipyrenees/the-awesome-millau-viaduct


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Have you heard of the Millau Viaduct or the Millau Sky Bridge? Would you like to see it? Do you like bridges? 

Please leave a comment to let me know you stopped by, and if you are part of the A to Z Challenge. I'll be sure to check your blog, and reciprocate. If you're not in the challenge, thanks for stopping by to visit! I try to reply to all comments.

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The A to Z Blog Challenge is brainchild of Lee, at Tossing It Out.  Please visit the A to Z blog site to find out more information and the participant list.  There are also Twitter and Facebook presences if you want to check those!



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References:

Wiki on Millau Viaduct
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millau_Viaduct 

Images:

Millau Viaduct

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled GNU Free Documentation License.

Comparison Diagram - Millau Viaduct and the Eiffel Tower

Height diagram comparing the highest Pier (P2) of the Millau Viaduct in France with the Eiffel Tower. Author: Roulex_45
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license.

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