The Rio-Antirio Bridge - An Engineering Marvel The Rion-Antirion Bridge is considered to be a creation of extraordinary engineering. Built in an area with high seismisity, it spans a 3 km-wide straight across the Gulf of Corinth, northeast of the city of Patras on Peloponnesus, Greece, and links the town of Rion on Peloponnesus with the town of Antirion on the Greek mainland, approximately 250 km northwest of Athens, Greece. Each end of the bridge sits on an opposite side of the expanding Corinthian Gulf rift zone.
Measuring 2,880 meters (m) long (9,449 ft) from end to end and 28 m wide (92.4 ft), the Rion-Antirion Bridge is considered to have the longest continuous, cable-stayed, fully suspended deck in the world, measuring 2,252 m in length (9,7431.6 ft).
Each of the four vertical structures are constructed with pylons that rest upon 90 m (297 ft) diameter, reinforced concrete caissons that sit upon a gravel layer on the sea floor, 60-65 m (198-214.5 ft) below the surface. A typical vertical structure measures 220 m (726 ft) high from the sea-bottom to the pylon head.
The project’s total cost was 630,000,000 euros and financing for the bridge was secured by way of using 10% share capital, 45% state financial contribution and 45% from loans from the European Union’s financial institution, the European Investment Bank, guaranteed by a group of commercial banks (Gefyra, 2007).
On April 13, 2005, the Rion-Antirion Bridge was given “The Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement (OCEA)” award by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). This was the first time, since 1960, that the award had gone to a project outside of the United States.
More on the engineering achievements of this bridge:
http://drgeorgepc.com/ArtRionAntirionBridge.html
Love it - can't beat the Greeks when they set their minds to things.
)
