Global Records
The World's Ten Longest Continuous Truss Bridges
1. Ikitsuki Bridge, 400-meter main span, Japan, opened 1991.
The Ikitsuki Bridge connects Hirado Island in southern Japan with smaller Ikitsuki Island, population 7,500. It is located about 70 miles northwest of Nagasaki. The bridge crosses the narrow Tatsuno-Seto Strait. A tidal-power turbine has been installed on one of the bridge piers.
Photo Courtesy Wikimedia Commons
2. Astoria-Megler Bridge, 376-meter main span, Oregon and Washington, United States, 1966.
A steel through-truss bridge, the Astoria-Megler Bridge spans the Columbia River between Astoria, Ore., and Megler, Wash. Situated 23 kilometers from the mouth of the river, it is 6.6 km long. Engineer William Adair Bugge designed the bridge, which is jointly owned and operated by the Oregon and Washington departments of transportation. In effect, the structure comprises two steel-truss bridges, which span the river and its shipping channels. The bridges are linked by a prestressed-concrete roadway on hollow concrete piles across a stretch of sandy shallows, the so-called Desdemona Sands, which is barely awash at low tide. The larger span, near the Oregon side, crosses the main ship channel and is 205 ft above mean low water.
Photo Courtesy Wikimedia Commons
3. Francis Scott Key Bridge, 366-meter main span, Maryland, United States, 1977.
A steel arch-shaped, continuous through-truss bridge totaling 8,636 ft, it carries four lanes of Interstate 695 across the Patapsco River in Baltimore. The central truss spans were designed by Singstad, Kehart, November & Hurka. Superstructure contractor Pittsburgh-Des Moines Steel Corp. fabricated the main truss. It was erected by a 100-ton traveling guy derrick and what may have been, at that time, the world’s tallest stiff-leg derrick. Standing 425 ft high, the barge-borne, 200-ton-capacity derrick was used to help erect approach spans and the 722-ft-long anchor arms. The floating derrick was designed by the project’s steel erector, the John F. Beasley Construction Co. Owned and operated by the Maryland Transportation Authority, the bridge cost $110 million to build. Also known as the Outer Harbor Bridge, the bridge is believed to pass within 100 meters of the site at which Francis Scott Key witnessed, in 1814, the bombardment of Fort McHenry, a battle during the War of 1812 that inspired him to write the words of "The Star-Spangled Banner," the U.S. national anthem (ENR 1/15/76 p.14).
Photo Courtesy Wikimedia Commons
4. Dashengguan Bridge, two 336-meter main spans, China, 2010.
The double continuous-steel truss-girder bridge carries six rail lines across the Yangtze River in Nanjing: four high-speed rail lines and two Nanjing metro lines. Owned by the Ministry of Railways, it has the highest loading capacity of any bridge in China. BHC Global served as the main contractor, with China Major Bridge Engineering and China Railway Baoji Bridge Group also participating. The steel-arch trusses were erected with the double-cantilever method, using crawler cranes. The foundation rests on bored piles up to 112 meters long and 2.89 m in dia. The construction cost was $537 million.
Photo Courtesy Wikimedia Commons
5. Oshima Bridge, 325-meter main span, Japan, 1976.
Developed by the Japan Highway Public Corp. and designed by Japan Bridge & Structure Institute Inc., the bridge began construction in 1970. The foundation was constructed by the Taisei Corp. & Obayashi Corp. joint venture. The bridge’s superstructure was built by the NKK Corp. and Yokogawa (Bridge) Corp. joint venture. NKK Corp. currently is named the JFE Steel Corp. The construction cost was 9.9 billion yen.
Photo Courtesy Wikimedia Commons
6. (tie) Tenmon Bridge, 300-meter main span, Japan, 1966.
A flattened, almost feathery-looking cantilever truss bridge that connects Oyono Island and the Uto peninsula, which is part of the major island of Kyushu, it is located 20 miles southwest of the city of Kumamoto. The Japan Public Highway Corp. was the designer. The foundation was constructed by Nishimatsu Kensetsu Corp., and the superstructure was constructed by Yokogawa Bridge Corp. The construction cost was 570 million yen.
Photo Courtesy Wikimedia Commons
6. (tie) Kuronoseto Bridge, 300-meter main span, Japan, 1974.
The bridge’s superstructure was designed and built by Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. The foundation was built by Kajima Corp. Construction began in 1970, and the construction cost was 3.7 billion yen.
Photo Courtesy Wikimedia Commons
8. U.S. 60 Bridge/New Ledbetter Bridge, 274 meter main span, Kentucky, USA, 2013.
A Warren truss, the bridge carries four lanes of U.S. Highway 60 across the Tennessee River near Paducah. The piers were built by C.J. Mahan Construction. A joint venture comprised of URS and Stantec designed the superstructure, which was constructed by a joint venture of Haydon Bridge Co. and Kan and Kay Construction Co. C.J. Mahan Construction also worked with Haydon and Kay and Kay as a subcontractor and performed the steel erection for the truss. The project was broken into an initial substructure contract and a superstructure contract that followed later, to help spread out the cost. While the substructures were under construction, the administration in charge at that time wanted to change the appearance of the truss, reduce the truss depth and eliminate some of the truss bracing to give a more open appearance to the bridge from what was originally proposed. The design team faced challenges arising from the demands of a long main span on a relatively shallow truss. These challenges were compounded by rigorous seismic loading on piers designed to accommodate a different structure. The design team overcame the challenge by finding a solution that did not require retrofitting the existing foundations or piers. The final construction cost was $95 million, and it was completed 11 months ahead of schedule.
9. Taylor-Southgate Bridge, 259-meter main span, Ohio and Kentucky, United States, 1995.
This continuous-truss bridge carries U.S. Route 27 across the Ohio River, linking Newport, Ky., and Cincinnati, Ohio. It was designed by Hazelet + Erdal.
Photo Courtesy Wikimedia Commons
10. Julien Dubuque Bridge, 258-meter main span, Iowa and Illinois, United States, 1943.
The Julien Dubuque Bridge is a 5,760-ft-long continuous steel-arch truss bridge that crosses the Mississippi River, connecting Dubuque, Iowa, and East Dubuque, Ill. It is believed to be the longest continuous-tied arch bridge in the world. It was designed by Howard, Needles, Tammen and Bergendorff (HNTB). The Bethlehem Steel Co. fabricated and built the superstructure, and the substructure was built by a joint venture comprising the Fred J. Robers Construction Co. and the La Crosse Dredging Corp. It was built using the balanced-cantilever construction method, with the trusses constructed outward from each pier and only a single steel bent next to the pier to provide temporary support. Because it was built during wartime, the project experienced several delays of materials and labor. The original construction cost was $3.2 million. The bridge was extensively renovated in the early 1990s, getting a new deck and a pedestrian walkway.
Photo Courtesy Wikimedia Commons
One notable recent instance where a long-span truss design was considered was the Columbia River Crossing, a joint effort by the states of Oregon and Washington to replace the pair of existing through-truss bridges that carry Interstate 5 over the Columbia River. Beginning in 2005, the states engaged firms to plan a new, higher-capacity bridge that also would carry a light-rail line. A double-deck truss design was specified. But disputes occurred over long-range traffic projections and toll-revenue forecasts, and, in 2013, the Washington state Senate failed to approve funding, thus ending the project.
One of the projects we feature above is a steel through-truss bridge whose construction was extensively documented in ENR more than 50 years ago. The Astoria-Megler Bridge spans the Columbia River between Astoria, Ore., and Megler, Wash. Completed in 1966, the 376-m main-span bridge rests on a sandy riverbed, which presented a foundation problem that required driving 200-ft-long steel piles.
DeLong Corp. constructed the bridge’s 32 piers, which involved the casting of pier shells of up to 377 tons and cap beams as heavy as 830 tons. The project marked the debut of “rotobags,” or two-compartment, 1½-cu-yd-capacity rubber bags that held aggregate and water in an outer compartment and cement in an inner, dry compartment for storage and transport from the batch plant and the mixers.
Developed by Rodeffer Industries, the bags did for concrete handling what instant cake mixes did for baking, making ready-mix trucks unnecessary and significantly reducing batching costs. DeLong crews prefabricated the pier shells and caps on the decks of barges that were moored adjacent to the concrete batch plant.
DeLong’s general superintendent was killed when a broken cable knocked him into the river. Pomeroy & Gerwick Co. built the concrete roadway connecting the spans. The American Bridge Division of U.S. Steel Corp. built the bridge’s steel superstructure, and the truss segments were fabricated in Vancouver, Wash., 145 km upriver, then barged downstream and lifted into place with hydraulic jacks. The construction cost was $24 million (ENR 10/17/63 p.28).
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