Puente Nigale - Seismic Design of the Cable-stayed Main Bridges

摘要

Lago de Maracaibo (Puente Nigale) fixed-link project. The link is 12 km long from shore to shore, and consists of east and west approach bridges and a main cable-stayed bridge over the navigation channel. The link accommodates two parallel bridge structures, one for road traffic and one for rail service. The main bridges consists of two parallel cable stayed bridges with main spans of 430 m and is situated in a seismically active area characterized by a peak ground acceleration of about 0.27g for a 1000 year return period event. The paper discusses the seismicity in the project area, the development of the seismic design loads, the seismic design criteria, the seismic design strategy and the seismic design of the structure. In particular, the deep pile foundations on soft soil presented unique challenges to the seismic design.