• August 15, 2011

American Bridge accepted the Infrastructure and Commonwealth Award from the American Concrete Institute this March at the Excellence in Concrete Awards program in Virginia for progress on the Chincoteague Bridge Route 175 project.

This project includes the construction of a 59-span, 4,764′ (1,452m), environmentally sensitive replacement bridge for Virginia Route 175 connecting the mainland to Chincoteague Island. The two-lane, 43′-4″ (13.2m) wide bridge utilizes typical 80′ (24.3m) precast concrete girder spans placed on top of cast-in-place concrete cylinder piles and cast-in-place caps located just under the roadway. The bridge length includes 4,035’ (1,230m) of mainline and 729’ (222m) of a secondary connector bridge providing access to Marsh Island. The navigational channel span is a 92’ (28m) single leaf trunnion bascule containing two 123’, 6” (37.64m) steel bascule girders 10’, 7” (3.23m) deep. The weight of the structural steel in the bascule span is 417,460lbs (189,000kg). There were approximately 292 piles driven on this project. All were 36″ concrete cylinder piles with a 6.5″ wall. Pile lengths varied from 84’ to 108’. The majority of the piles were driven to a tip elevation of -85+/-. However, 61 piles were driven to a final tip elevation of -129 by using a follower 30’ long. This is the first instance of a hollow cylinder pile driven 25’ underwater.