The nearly $900 million US 181 Harbor Bridge Project in Corpus Christi, Texas will include the development, design and construction of 10 km of combined bridge and roadway. It will include the new six-lane Harbor Bridge as well as the reconstruction of adjoining sections of two freeways. This will be the longest cable stay bridge in the United States when completed. Once the new bridge is open to the traveling public, the project will conclude with the demolition of the existing Harbor Bridge. The main towers of the bridge will be 164 m (538 ft) tall and are supported on a group of large diameter drilled shafts. Each tower is supported on twenty two 3 m (10 ft) diameter by 75 m (250 ft) deep shafts. The north tower is located where a previous industrial warehouse was sited. This warehouse was supported on closely spaced 400 mm (16 in) nominal diameter by 20 m (65 ft) long CFA piles, which required the removal of these piles where they conflicted with the new drilled shafts. The amount of steel reinforcing in the piles required that they be extracted in one piece. The actual diameter of the piles was also expected to vary significantly due to the soft layered soil conditions encountered in the upper 15 m (50 ft). An innovative wet rotary coring technique involving the combined use of both hanging lead CFA drilling equipment and a drilled
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Author: Tracy Brettmann, P.E., D.GE, Vice President
Publisher: DFI, EFFC