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Genuine technological feat, the 'Trikoupis' Bridge, also known as The Poseidon Bridge or The French Bridge, connecting the Greek Peloponnesus to the continent, was inaugurated on August 8, 2004, four months ahead of schedule and just in time to welcome the Olympic flame the following days.
This bridge has all the makings of an exploit: sporting its 2,252-meter-long suspended deck, it is the world’s longest cable-stayed bridge. Above all, it represents a great technological feat, for it is located in a high-seimicity zone (only 8-km from a fault), exposed to both tectonic movements and strong winds. The water depth reaches 65 m and the seabed sediments are of poor quality (clay, sand and silt) with no hard rock basement to be found at less than 500 m to which the foundations could be anchored.
The project was led by Gefyra, a subsidiary of the Vinci group that entrusted Geodynamique & Structure with the design of the bridge’s foundation system.
Technical studies
The foundation system called for innovative computations in order to model its behavior.
Scale models underwent testing in the LCPC centrifuge at Nantes, subjecting them to a gravity of 100 g (see the article).
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Consequences :
This bridge was designed to withstand wind speeds of 160 mph, a magnitude 7 earthquake on the Richter scale and the impact of a 180,000-ton tanker. |
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60m de hauteur pour une pile de pont
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Construction :
To compensate for the basement’s lack of firmness, each of the bridge’s piers (90m in diameter footings) merely rests on 200 vertical steel tubes 25 to 30m long, covered with 3-meter-thick gravel layer. In the event of an earthquake, the piers can slide sideways up to 2 m.
The traffic deck, suspended on 368 cable stays, is equipped with a system of diagonal struts at the piers that fail when an earthquake occurs to allow the deck to swing like a glider. Four dampers per pier constrain the swinging motion, which may amount to up to 3 m.
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See & listen:
Université de tous les savoirs Conference, October 20,2004 :
LEMONDE.FR | 07.10.04
©  Download the Conference pdf, or mp3 or video format (RealAudio) |
Can be consulted on the internet:
- the bridge's official site: Gefyra.gr
- the database for the civil engineering works: Structurae
- technical details on the foundations : LCPC (Laboratoire Central des Ponts et Chaussées)
- Wikipedia.org
- articles du Moniteur (pour abonnés)
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Further readings
- Les acteurs du Projet : Revue Travaux n° 809 de juin 2004 devoted to the bridge
- Pont de Rion-Antirion : fiabilité et conception parasismique des fondations. La sécurité des grands ouvrages, Alain PECKER, Presses ENPC, pp. 21-51 (2000)
- Pont de Rion-Antirion : fiabilité et conception parasismique des fondations. La sécurité des grands ouvrages, Alain PECKER, Presses ENPC, pp. 21-51 (2000)
- Seismic design for the foundations of the Rion Antirion Bridge, A. PECKER, J.-P. TEYSSANDIER, T. GUYOT J. COMBAULT, 15th Congress of IABSE, Copenhague (DK), June 16-20, 1996
- Articles in the Moniteur devoted to the Rio-Antirio Bridge, including Rion-Antirion, le pont de l'audace , Les 7 réponses techniques and Un chantier hors norme (n°5257 dated August, 27, 2004 pp.32, 34 et 36) - and the articles appeared in n° 5254 du 06/08/04, n°5247 du 18/06/04, n°5244 du du 28/05/04, n°5232 du 05/03/04, n°5212 du 17/10/03 (te list is not complete)
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