Design and construction of the Ohio River Bridges East End Crossing cable-stayed bridge

Procured under a public private partnership contract (P3), the main river spans of the $763 million Ohio River Bridges East End Crossing feature a 695.1m long three-span steel composite cablestayed bridge with a center span of 365.9m. The towers supporting the bridge feature convex curved diamond configuration and are supported on waterline footings founded on 2.4m diameter drilled shafts socketed into competent limestone. The superstructure features a streamlined steel composite deck consisting of inclined longitudinal steel I-shaped edge girders at each end and transverse floor beams made composite with the precast concrete deck. The stay-cables are connected to the edge girders using in-line shark-fin anchorages welded directly to edge girder web while at the tower head anchorage the cables are anchored into steel anchor boxes. To fast-track construction, the cable-stayed bridge was constructed using a combination of several construction methods. The Indiana side span was incrementally launched while the Kentucky side span was stick-build on falsework, allowing for simultaneous construction of the superstructure steel grillage of the two side spans while the diamond towers were constructed. Upon completion of the towers, the center span was constructed by balanced cantilever. The bridge is expected to open to traffic in December 2017.