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The new eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge was completed over Labor Day weekend
Why did we need a new span of the bridge to begin with?
It's been 20+ years since the existing span was damaged in the 1989 Lomo Prieta earthquake
The new bridge is the world’s longest self-anchoring suspension bridge
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This design includes innovative “shear link” beams and “hinge-pipe” beams which act as shock absorbers, and will enable the bridge to withstand the largest plausible earthquake for the next 1,500 years.
17,000 individual steel strands make up the suspension cables; each strand can dangle one Hummer
Before being built, the bridge was modeled in 4 dimensions
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The bridge was modeled, simulated and analyzed in 3D and the phasing of the construction was modeled in the fourth dimension: time.
This will be the largest public works project in California
Out of 280,000 vehicles that cross the bridge daily, here is the last one to use the old bridge
42,000 hours of construction work in four minutes
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To learn more about the Bay Bridge and the software used in its design and construction, visit the Autodesk Gallery.
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