West Virginia’s Roads to Prosperity program transformed Interstate 64 and the Kanawha River Bridge from a bottleneck into a six-lane freeway. The $2.8 billion project improved safety and merging while reducing accidents.
Located in Charleston, W.V., the Kanawha River Bridge now has the longest steel plate girder span in the United States, clocking in at 562 feet, and for these reasons, it is No. 2 on our Top 10 list of 2024 bridge projects.
At its completion in 1963, the through truss structure was the widest bridge constructed in the state. After more than 60 years of service, congestion around the Kanawha River Bridge had become the norm, according to Jason Fuller, the vice president and senior project manager at HDR.
“The constant back-ups from ramps onto travel lanes; accidents from the interstate slimming down to two lanes in each direction, and issues for vehicles, especially trucks, merging from the ramps at the adjacent interchanges onto the heavily travelled mainline lanes due to the roadway grade,” Fuller said.
In 2019, the West Virginia Department of Transportation (WVDOT) hired HDR to design the project and Brayman-Trumball as the contractors.
The original project plan called for removing the existing bridge’s substructure, which would increase the navigational span approximately 50 feet.
However, a design-build rehabilitation plan maintained the existing navigational envelope. WVDOT also determined that a design-build process would allow HDR and Brayman-Trumball to collaborate more efficiently.
A three-dimensional finite element analysis (3-D FEA) was performed. This assessed complex issues not usually associated with routing steel I-girder design. The 3D FEA considered the entire structure’s geometry, including deck, girders, bracing, bearing flexibility and substructure.
This analysis provided refined checks on stability during erection, assessments of the structure’s wind sensitivity and took advantage of load sharing between girders due to the deck, cross-frames and lateral bracing.
The project was broken into two phases. The first phase had the new westbound Nitro World War I Memorial Bridge built off site. Then all traffic was moved onto it.
The second phase demolished the existing truss, and the reconstructed eastbound Donald Leff Memorial Bridge was completed.
The plate girder bridge was cost-effective, easier for transportation and met the requirements to keep the roadway and railroad open during construction.
The main span was designed and detailed for strand jacking, eliminating main span temporary works and significant effects on river traffic.
The project team widened four miles of interstate from four to six lanes, replaced four steel plate girder structures along the mainline and reconstructed the St. Albans interchange to include flyover ramps. This made it a tri-level interchange.
The new bridges are parallel dual structures. Each bridge is 65-feet-wide and accommodates four 12-foot travel lanes. Three are for mainline traffic with a fourth for ramp traffic.
The team reused the existing bridge piers, which set the span lengths to avoid the railroad, roadway, riverbanks and approach fill slopes below.
With the new structural design, the new river bridges are designed for 100-years of service life. This also minimizes complex solutions that would affect the design or construction and lower future maintenance costs.
The complex, distinctive site included a railroad, highway and navigable river, which required large span solutions. The design-build procurement allowed for a collaborative process for the team to work alongside the owner to propose innovative and cost-effective solutions that a traditional procurement would not have produced.
The solution set a national record for a bridge type, and the design team used its expertise to interpret the design codes that do not extend to the record setting span.
Thanks to the maintenance requirements, WVDOT will save through the life of the structure because specialized personnel or processes are not required to reach the intended service life. Everything about the project wrapped up into something never done before.
Project: I-64 Improvement and Record-Setting Kanawha River Bridge
Location: Putnam County, West Virginia
Owners: West Virginia Department of Transportation
Designer: HDR
Contractor: Brayman-Trumbull, A Joint Venture
Cost: $224 Million
Length: 1468 Feet
