Bridging Continents

Challenge

Among the issues facing the Egyptian government’s plan for the Sinai Peninsula to become a major economic, cultural, and political center was the lack of transportation links. The mainland of Egypt including Cairo was connected to the Sinai by one tunnel and a handful of ferry crossings. Plans to expand the Suez Canal to accommodate larger ships made the safety of ferry operations another issue.

We assessed technical and economic issues, studied various options for the bridge type and construction location, prepared basic and detailed designs of the selected bridge, supervised its construction, and provided technical transfer to Egyptian counterpart engineers.

The main bridge is a visually striking cable-stay structure with H-shape pylons to achieve the long central span of 404 m. A steel box-girder structure was used for the main deck, and the foundations were built using concrete diaphragm walls. To provide navigation clearance of 70 m, the approach roads were raised using embankments and pre-stressed concrete box-girder bridges.

Support

Upon the Egyptian government’s request, we inspected the steel deck plate and concrete substructure from 2010 to 2013. Based on those results, we supervised the repair of the substructure in 2012 and advised on the repaving and repair of the steel deck plate in 2016.

Award

JSCE Maintenance Award, 2021 → Link