The absolute world record in spans until 1986 (The previous World Record went to the St. Nazaire bridge, a combined bridge L=404 m). The World Record for spans in concrete cable stayed bridges until 1995 (The previous World Record went to Brottone L=320 m).
This bridge has a 440 m long main span and two compensating spans, with counterweights included, measuring 101 m. The expansion joint of the prestressed concrete lintel is found in the centre of the main span, due to the fact that the compensations are exceptionally short because of the morphology of the ground, which prevents being able to place the joints on the end edges without this over complicating the longitudinal mobility of the counterweights.
The piers are 123 m high, 90 m high from the lintel, and for the first time they take on the trapezial rectangular shape with a view to maintaining the stays system perfectly vertical, and to also allowing the lintel to cross the pier without touching the bottom section of it.
With a height of 2.3 m, the lintel achieves a slenderness of Ll200.
The stays are arranged with an 8.04 m separation along the lintel. The whole length of the lintel is suspended, even in the pier area, where the lintel only rests horizontally.
This is the first time that we have undertaken a non linear calculation of the bridge performance (the stay-lintel interaction, in both construction and service phases) and also of the whole point charge distribution on the lintel by spatial finite elements.
The construction was carried out via the cantilever method with 4.02 m long voussoirs.
