Red Wing Project Update
PROJECT SUMMARY
The Red Wing bridge project replaces the 50+ year old Eisenhower Bridge (Hwy 63) over the Mississippi River. It is the only regional Mississippi River crossing for approximately 30 miles upstream and downstream and has over 13,300 vehicles traveling across per day. Zenith Tech began work at Red Wing in May of 2017 and plans for a tentative opening of October 2019.
BY THE NUMBERS
Red Wing is the largest bridge structure ZTI has designed & built.
Steel Casing (pipe) used to construct the 9’ diameter drilled shafts to support the new bridge pier are 100’ long and the corresponding rebar cage is made up of 3-1/2”, #18, diameter rods (the largest size available).
The pre-stressed girders are the longest and heaviest concrete beams we have ever set at 82” tall x 175’ long; weighing in at 210,000 lbs/piece.
The cofferdam built to keep the foundation construction dry utilized 86’ long sheet piles resulting in the deepest cofferdam we have built. A 10’ thick slab of concrete attached to the drilled shafts was needed at the bottom to resist the upward pressure of the water.
Setting the new steel girders required up to four huge cranes working in perfect concert to lift as many as 3 sections at once. Each individual piece is up to 13-1/2’ tall and tips the scale at up to 300,000 pounds.
Nine sections in Span 2 remain to be set; at 432 feet in length, it’s the longest span we’ve ever built. Historical flooding, however, set this final connection back since mid-March, but work is slated to resume once the river recedes to a safe level.
Look for more updates on this exciting project throughout this construction season.