Interchange project wins major engineering award

The Section 5 Palmetto SR826/836 Interchange project in Florida has won the 2016 FICE Engineering Excellence Grand Award in the Structures category.
December 11, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
The new interchange offers increased capacity and safety and helps cut congestion

The Section 5 Palmetto SR826/836 Interchange project in Florida has won the 2016 FICE Engineering Excellence Grand Award in the Structures category.

FINLEY Engineering was the engineer of record for the four segmental bridges, Number 9, 11, 15 and 19, and provided construction engineering expertise. The segmental bridges were precast, balanced cantilever and erected with a 140.2m launching gantry. The bridge lengths varied from 335.3m to 746.76m in length and are 14.35m-wide, with a maximum span length of 81m. The curved segmental bridge ramps are the third level of the interchange with radii down to 180m and have a maximum superstructure deck height of 29m. above the proposed ground. All of the bridges are supported on 610mm pile foundations and reinforced concrete piers and caps. The project was carried out for 2697 Florida Department of Transportation, the contractor was the Community, Condotte, De Moya Joint Venture and the prime design consultant was BCC Engineering.

The bridge design offered unique challenges integrating underlying roadways, canals and MOT requirements into the layout of these segmental bridge ramps. This project was constructed in the Miami International Airport flight path and had FAA Requirements. The high level segmental flyovers are built over multiple roads that carry 430,000 vehicles/day and are the tightest elevation curves erected in the United States. The all overhead erection eliminated the need for falsework and cranes and eliminated five MOT phases that would have impacted traffic, thereby providing a safer work environment. FINLEY integrated the design into the construction while satisfying the strong aesthetic requirements. The design reduced maintenance and construction costs with the use of external tendons, Diabolos and deviators. The use of polystyrene in the hollow pier columns, except at the base of the caps, eliminated the need for interior formwork and reduced the overall mass of the structure and concrete required.

Road Structures

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Framework solutions speed bridge construction
    February 24, 2012
    Framework plays a key role in construction of bridges and other major infrastructure works – Mike Woof writes Speeding construction processes can help reduce costs considerably and the latest formwork solutions can provide significant benefits in this regard. In many projects the use of standardized and modular formwork solutions can play a key role, reducing the planning and systems required for bridge building work.
    Read More
  • Innovative, flexible bridge formwork systems
    February 14, 2012
    Innovative formwork systems have been used to construct a variety of bridge structures. Patrick Smith reports. As part of the work on Germany's new A4 autobahn near Eisenach, the contracting joint venture awarded the formwork contract for two of the three viaducts to Doka. What makes this assignment so special to the company is that although the two steel composite bridges each have very different cross-sections, the JV is using the same overslung composite forming carriage to pour the carriageway slabs of
    Read More
  • Fast-track Biloxi Bay bridge
    July 18, 2012
    Construction of a bridge destroyed in a hurricane was completed early, and with some added aesthetic benefits Hurricane Katrina, one of the deadliest and costliest natural disasters in US history, made landfall on 29 August, 2005, devastating the Gulf Coast. The US 90 Bridge over Biloxi Bay (connecting the communities of Biloxi and Ocean Springs, Mississippi) was one of many major highway and railroad bridges knocked out of service due to extensive storm damage. The eye of the storm passed 96km west of Bilo
    Read More
  • Cebu-Cordova Link Expressway opens
    April 28, 2022
    The 8.5km expressway, in which Cowi was owners engineer for the client Metro Pacific Tollways, incorporates the longest and tallest bridge in the Philippines.
    Read More

Highlighted Content