Design and Construction of the My Thuan Bridge, Vietnam

The My Thuan Bridge was opened to traffic on 21 May 2000, some eight months ahead of the original schedule. It is the first crossing of the massive Mekong River in Vietnam, the first cable stayed and the largest span bridge in the country. The $90 million bridge was jointly funded by the governments of Australia and Vietnam and designed and supervised by Maunsell Mclntyre Pty Ltd. The structure is located approximately 125 km from Ho Chi Minh City on National Highway Number 1 and has an overall length of 1535 m with a central 350 m span cable stayed bridge providing a 37.5 m high navigation clearance for shipping to Phnom Penh in Cambodia. It features 100 m deep large diameter bored pile foundations, load tested to 30 MN, Super Tee beam approaches with spans of 40 m and damping devices built in to the cable anchorages to eliminate cable vibrations. This paper describes the background to the project and provides an insight into its design and construction. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD E204289.