Design and construction of the new Rewa River Bridge

Rewa Bridge is located on Kings Road at Nausori, approximately 30 kilometres north of Suva, Fiji. The bridge carries the main island ring road across the Rewa River and carries four lanes of traffic and two pedestrian footpaths. An incrementally launched single cell box girder was selected for the superstructure, primarily because of the optimal substructure/superstructure arrangement that could be achieved. The box girder is some 19 metres wide with spans of 49.5 metres. The site is also subject to seismic shaking leading to liquefaction of non-cohesive layers and river scour depths at the site were assessed to be as deep as 10 metres. Accordingly, the foundations utilized multiple small diameter driven steel tube piles with pile lengths of up to 60 metres at the eastern side of the river. This paper outlines the challenges associated with design and construction of a reasonably complex structure in a developing nation. Particular constraints that impacted the project included supply of materials from specified countries and the level of construction infrastructure available in Fiji. This required considerable adaptation of usual design and construction processes to develop a buildable solution that met client requirements. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E214936.