Pre-Stressed Concrete Bridge Beams
Structural concrete, well known for its strength, durability and versatility. These properties enhance structural elements manufactured as prestressed concrete. Pre-stressed concrete bridge beams have become the preferred option for a wide range of bridge spans and types.
Developments in structural design, material strength and manufacturing have enabled pre-stressed concrete bridge beams for use in significantly greater spans.
Shay Murtagh Precast not only manufactures high quality pre-stressed concrete bridge beams, but with our experienced and agile design, manufacturing and transportation teams are able to serve as a valuable resource at all facets of planning, design, manufacturing and construction.
Shay Murtagh Precast Concrete Bridge Beams are ideal for
- Road Bridges
- Rail Bridges
- Foot Bridges
- Any building or infrastructure or highway application incorporating long span
Shay Murtagh Bridge Beams
At Shay Murtagh we manufacture a wide range of precast concrete bridge beams, including U-Beams, Y-Beams, T-Beams, Box-Beams, W-Beams, and several edge beam variants. These beams are designed for diverse applications across medium and long-span road and rail bridges, commercial developments, and marine structures. Each beam type offers structural and construction efficiencies, such as integrated edge details, rapid assembly, minimal onsite formwork, and enhanced load capacity for parapet and service integration.
U-Beam
Typical Application: Medium and long span highway, rail and pedestrian bridges. Long spans in car parks or other building applications with large beam centers. Advantages: Convenient provision for services. Robust torsional resistance for skewed decks and other high torsion members.BOX-Beam
Typical Application: Short and medium span highway, rail and pedestrian bridges. Long spans in car parks or other building applications. Solid slab decks in bridges or civils and building applications. Advantages: Corresponds to the shallowest deck depth for structures with tight structural depth limitations.Y-Beam
Typical Application: Medium and long span highway, rail and pedestrian bridges. Long spans in car parks or other building applications with large beam centers. Advantages: Lightest prestressed beam option for medium and long span bridges. Readily accessible for inspections during the life of the structure.T-Beam
Typical Application: Short and medium span highway and rail bridges and civils / buildings applications. Advantages: Lightest prestressed beams. Economical for shorter spans, providing efficient load transfer with reduced material usage. Well-suited for applications where beam depth is a constraint, offering practical construction and ease of installation in smaller-scale structures.W-Beam
Typical Application: Medium / long span highway, rail & pedestrian bridges. Long spans in car parks or other building applications with large beam centers. Advantages: Often the most economic option for medium & long span bridges. Convenient provision for services. Robust torsional resistance for skewed decks & other high torsion members. Suited to decks with larger beam centersM-Beam
Typical Application: Provides a voided slab deck for medium and long span highway, rail and pedestrian bridges and for civils and building applications. Advantages: Provides a closed slab type soffit for medium and long span bridges. Offers enhanced structural efficiency by reducing dead load through voids while maintaining strength.Standard beam depths range from 300 mm up to 2300 mm, accommodating a variety of span and loading requirements. Typical deck construction includes permanent formwork options, in-situ concrete slabs (generally C32/40 or higher), and detailed reinforcement layouts tailored to project needs. All beams are produced using high-grade, prestressed concrete, ensuring durability, high strength, and minimal maintenance. Lifting and installation procedures are engineered for safety and efficiency, with typical strand layouts and lifting anchorages provided for each beam type.
Our bridge beams are compliant with Eurocodes and industry specifications, supporting bespoke engineering for project-specific requirements.
Environmental Product Declaration (EPD)
| Product Name | EPD Hub ID | Validity | Download |
| Precast Bridge Beam – U Beam | HUB-5932 | 05.04.2031 |  |
| Precast Bridge Beam – Y Beam | HUB-5931 | 05.04.2031 | |
| Precast Bridge Beam – W Beam | HUB-5930 | 05.04.2031 | |
Shay Murtagh Precast pre-stressed concrete bridge beams are manufactured in a dedicated facility ensuring factory quality with engineered tolerances by personnel that have up to 40 years of experience in pre-stressed concrete operations.
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Shay Murtagh Precast are proud to have worked on some of the biggest infrastructure projects in both Ireland and the UK.
Our qualified design team work with major contractors to develop value engineering solutions.
Bridge Beam FAQs
What is an I Beam?
An I-beam is a bridge beam with an I-shaped cross-section. The horizontal elements of the “I” are flanges, while the vertical element is the web. The web resists shear forces while the flanges resist most of the bending moment experienced by the beam. Beam theory shows that the I-shaped section is a very efficient from for carrying both bending and shear loads in the plane of the web. I beams used in Structural Engineering and bridge design projects.
What is a Concrete Slab?
A concrete slab is a common structural element of modern buildings. Horizontal slabs of steel reinforced concrete, typically between 100 and 500 millimetres thick, most often used to construct floors and ceilings, while thinner slabs are also used for exterior paving.
What is GRC and GRC Panels?
GRC is glass fibre reinforced concrete. GRC panels suit all forms of structures, providing both a practical and economical way of supporting freshly poured in situ concrete in composite bridge decks. Often used to span the short distances between bridge beams on site.
What is an Arch Bridge?
An arch bridge is a type of bridge that relies on a curved, semi-circular structure for its support. Unlike post and beam bridges, which support loads on columns placed in the water along the entire bridge length, an arch bridge can span great distances while still leaving wide openings for water flow and water traffic.
What are Cantilever Bridges?
A cantilever bridge is a bridge built using cantilevers, structures that project horizontally into space, supported on only one end. The roadway of the bridge held in place by cantilevers. These are long structures, or arms, projecting out into the water and anchored on only one end.
In a cantilever bridge, there are the outer beams, the cantilevers, and the central beam. The outer beams attach firmly to shore, while the cantilevers then attach to these outer beams. The cantilevers projecting out from the outer beams, or supporting piers on the opposite shores, are then joined by a central beam.
What is a Box Beam?
A box beam is a rectangular-shaped precast and prestressed concrete beam. These beams side by side or connected laterally and used to from a bridge deck with or without a cast-in-place slab or topping. The units act similar to a slab. They act as a beam when spread and when a cast-in-place slab is used.
What is A My Beam?
M stands for the moment in the beam and Y is the distance from the point where you are calculating the stress to the neutral axis. MY beams are used in Structural Engineering and bridge design projects.
What is a U Beam?
U beam is a U-shaped, uni-directional, pre-stressed, quartz fiber reinforced beam for bridges. It is resistant to twisting and flexing. U beams are used in Structural Engineering and bridge design projects.
What is Bespoke Concrete?
Because concrete is both a very durable and versatile material it is perfect for the manufacture of a wide range of bespoke concrete solutions as it can be pre-frabricated offsite making it a very cost effective and time efficient process.
Engineers and architects using precast and prestressed concrete for unique construction projects e.g.: replacing rail bridges, aquaducts, tunnel projects, framed buildings, carparks, stadia, motorways, waste water treatment plants and lots more.
What is a Y Beam?
Typical applications of the Y beam are for medium and long span bridges and commercial developments.
What are the four main factors in describing bridge design?
The four main factors are:
- span (simple, continuous, cantilever)
- material (stone, reinforced concrete, metal, etc.)
- placement of the travel surface in relation to the structure (deck, pony, through)
- form (beam, arch, truss, etc.)
What are Concrete Beam Span Tables?
Span tables allow bridge designers and engineers to choose an appropriate size bridge beam and stress grade to achieve spanning needs. Shay Murtagh have created span tables for a variety of prestressed concrete bridge beams to meet Eurocode Standards in accordance with the European Union.
If you would like to know more about concrete beam span tables you can download our Eurocode Bridge Beam Manual.
What are Concrete Bridge Beams?
Precast prestressed concrete beams are widely used in today’s bridge construction industry where speed and ease of erection are of paramount importance. Over the years, the precast prestressed concrete beam spans have increased due to improvements in material properties.
The introduction of new girder shapes, larger prestressing strands, and advances in design methods. There are many shapes and sizes including: i beams, u beams, y beams, my beams, w beams, mye beams, ye beams, t beams, ty beams, tye beams, m beams, um beams and box beams.
What is a Pre-Cast Bridge?
In pre-cast bridges, concrete segments like beams, decking and flanges, constructed offsite normally at the precast manufacturing plant and then transported and hoisted into place. As the new segment suspends from the crane. Workers install steel reinforcing that attaches the new segment to preceding segments.
Each segment of the bridge, designed to accept connections from both preceding and succeeding segments. Precasting bridges allows engineers to construct a bridge quite quickly for time. Precious projects like active rail bridges who cannot afford much downtime making it a highly cost effective solution.
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