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At a total cost of $644 million, Charleston’s new Ravenel Bridge is the most expensive bridge ever to be built in South Carolina – it might also be considered one of the most attractive and best planned, an engineering work of art, so to speak. The bridge has captured the imaginations of project workers and bridge engineers around the world.World-renowned design engineers who are working on the Ravenel Bridge have taken advantage of their previous experience with cable-stayed bridge super-projects in far-flung regions of the globe. The new Cooper River Bridge required several critical construction elements to be worked into the design – the strength to withstand hurricanes, flexibility in the event of an earthquake, enough height to allow the next generation of ocean-going cargo ships to pass, and affordability and aesthetics for the citizens and visitors of Charleston – yet they had to remain within budget constraints. The design has passed grueling tests from seismic experts, who required the bridge be able to withstand an 8.0 earthquake. To create the necessary flexibility, plastic hinge zones are being built into the towers. To accommodate 190-mile hurricane force winds, a damping system is built into the bridge.
Work crews passed a construction milestone recently when the superstructure was connected to land on the Mount Pleasant side of the bridge. The bridge is now connected to land on both sides of the river; all that remains to be done is connect the two sides with the main span that bridges the Cooper River shipping channel. The main span will be comprised of eight new traffic lanes, which will accommodate the ever-expanding need for better access between Charleston and Mount Pleasant. The Ravenel Bridge will replace two steeply graded steel truss bridges that are now considered functionally obsolete. The two-lane, 74-year-old Grace Memorial Bridge now has a 5-ton weight limit and the three-lane, 35-year-old Pearman Bridge operates without a median. Until the Ravenel Bridge is completed, these two bridges will remain the only connections between the popular suburb of Mount Pleasant and the city of Charleston.
While no opening date has been set for the Ravenel Bridge, it will probably open sometime in the spring of 2005, more than a year ahead of schedule. (Images provided by cooperriverbridge.org)
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Larger ships will be able to pass under the 186-foot clearance of the bridge and the 1,000-foot-wide channel as they make their way to the Port of Charleston. Two large, sloped rock islands will protect the bridge’s footings from collisions with ship traffic. The opportunity for increased shipping traffic has led to improvements and expansions by the Port of Charleston.
When completed, the new 2.5-mile-long cable-stayed bridge will sport twin diamond-shaped towers that rise 575 feet. It will also have North America’s longest cable-stayed span, 1,546 feet. The bridge is designed to have a life span of 100 years.
Both the Grace Memorial Bridge and the Pearman Bridge are scheduled for demolition in the near future. Demolition bids will be accepted from companies beginning in February 2005.