RIGOLETS PASS BRIDGE

New Orleans, Louisiana

This Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development project consists of a 5,400-foot post-tensioned, precast concrete girder bridge with more than a mile of roadway approaches. The bridge is a high rise structure with 63 bents. The cast-in-place concrete deck rises more than 70 feet above the water at the center of the pass. Thirty-four bents are constructed on land and 29 bents on the water. Twenty bents are founded on 16-inch square Precast Prestressed Concrete (PPC) piles, 17 bents are founded on 30-inch square PPC piles, and 26 bents are founded on 66-inch diameter concrete cylinder piles ranging from 130-feet to 200-feet long. The superstructure consists of Type II and BT-78 concrete girders and the three main spans consist of spliced BT-78 precast concrete haunch girders. Footings for Bents 20 through 35 are 11 feet deep and are cast on soffit forms made of precast concrete slabs that set on top of the 66-inch cylinder piles near the waterline. A 600-ton capacity barge-mounted Manitowoc 4600 ringer crane was used to make lifts up to 160 tons. The heavy lifts included 66-inch diameter concrete cylinder pile up to 200 feet in length, weighing 140 tons. These piles were driven to depths of more than 130 feet into the lake bed using a 280,000 foot-pound hydraulic impact hammer.