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San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge New East Span Skyway Wins 2014 Portland Cement Association Bridge Design Award of Excellence

San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge New East Span Skyway Wins 2014 Portland Cement Association Bridge Design Award of Excellence

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T.Y. Lin International (TYLI), a globally recognized full-service infrastructure consulting firm, announces that the Skyway, the longest portion of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge New East Span (East Span), has received a 2014 Portland Cement Association’s (PCA) Bridge Design Award of Excellence. The competition, instituted in 1988, recognizes excellence in the design and construction of concrete bridges. TYLI, in a joint venture with Moffatt & Nichol, was the Engineer of Record for the project.

The 1.2-mile-long Skyway, with its sweeping parallel decks, carries a total of 10 lanes of traffic in both directions, as well as a bicycle/pedestrian path — said to be the longest bike path over water in the world. With its construction, design engineers introduced significant advancements in the manufacturing and use of concrete in infrastructure design and construction. As a notable example, the Skyway decks comprise massive, precast concrete segments, some weighing as much as 750 tons. These segments, which were fabricated in Stockton, California, and transported by barge 70 miles to the project site, are the largest concrete segments of their kind ever cast.

A critically-important lifeline structure, the Skyway was the first portion of the new East Span to be built and features foundation pilings driven deep into bay soils and state-of-the-art seismic design. The bridge includes 60-foot-long hinge pipe beams that have been designed to ensure that damage to the expansion joints is minimized and that the bridge can open to emergency traffic shortly after the largest anticipated earthquake.

“T.Y. Lin International’s design of the Skyway exemplifies innovation in the design of segmental bridges and deep foundations,” said Sajid Abbas, Ph.D., P.E., TYLI Vice President and Lead Design Engineer for the Skyway. “We are deeply honored that the Portland Cement Association has recognized our work with a highly-prized Bridge Design Award of Excellence.”

The PCA Bridge Design Award of Excellence was presented at the American Concrete Institute (ACI) Fall 2014 Convention on October 26th in Washington, D.C. In addition, TYLI Chairman of the Board, Man-Chung Tang, Dr-Ing, Dr-Ing-eh, DLitt, P.E., HonMASCE, was the Special Guest Speaker at ACI’s International Lunch, where he presented on recent concrete bridges designed and constructed in China.

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