Puente Nigale Main Bridges: Long Span Precast Segmental Cable Stayed Bridges for Railway and Roadway

The existing bridge across the Lake Maracaibo, the General Rafael Urdaneta Bridge, dates from the 1960s and is now operating at full capacity. Construction of the second fixed link across the Lake Maracaibo, the Puente Nigale, started in 2012. The new link will carry two railway tracks and four lanes of highway. The total length is around 11 km from coast to coast and consists of 10 km approach bridges and two parallel 910 m cable stayed bridges with 430 m main span across the navigation channel in precast segmental construction. This will be world record span for a concrete cable stayed bridge carrying railway traffic. This paper gives an overall presentation of the project and describes the cable stayed main bridges with special focus on the unique features, including precast segmental superstructure, central cable plane and train/bridge dynamics.