Construction of the Gerald Desmond Bridge Replacement Project (GDBRP) at the Port of Long Beach in Long Beach, California, is in the home stretch. The main span bridge over the Back Channel will include California’s first vehicular cable-stayed bridge. This signature structure will have a 1,000-foot main span and 500-foot back spans. Once built, the new bridge will be the second-tallest cable-stayed bridge in the U.S. and have the highest vertical clearance of any cable-stayed bridge in the country.
The replacement bridge is founded on a total of 352 cast-in-drilled-hole piles. More than 100 reinforced concrete columns of varying heights will support the superstructure, with the two towers supporting the main span featuring a hollow 515-foot-tall monopole design.
The signature cable-stayed bridge span consists of a pair of 6-foot-deep steel edge girders with a box shape cross-section. Framing into the edge girders are steel floorbeams with four lines of longitudinal stringers spanning between them. This floorsystem supports full-depth precast concrete deck panels. The cross-section of the bridge has an out-to-out width of approximately 156 feet to accommodate three lanes in each direction and emergency lanes on both sides (10 foot shoulders). Seismic demands on the main span will be dissipated with passive dampers at the towers and end bents.

Gerald Desmond Bridge Replacement Project: California’s First Vehicular Cable-Stayed Bridge

The ASCE Convention is the Society's flagship membership event. It is the single annual opportunity that the entire Society is represented together and reflects the diversity of civil engineering that ASCE encompasses. The program for the Convention will be of an integrated, cross-cultural, technical, and educational nature.

The program will follow the convention topics: State of the Industry/Profession, Integrated Systems, System Failures and Recovery, Strategic Issues/Public Policy, Significant Projects, and History & Heritage.

Conference DOI: https://doi.org/10.26226/m.6317aa2c8311fe0014a10523