COLD SPRING CANYON BRIDGE

Location:

Near Santa Barbara, California, USA

Description:

Two lane, steel arch bridge built in 1962. Soaring over the valley, it won the AISC Most Beautiful Steel Bridge (Long Span) Award in 1963.

Total length: 371 m (1214 ft.)
Main span: 213 m (700 ft.)

Owner and Client:

State of California

Scope of Work:

Buckland & Taylor Ltd. designed the seismic retrofit of California's longest span arch in the Phase II seismic retrofit program. Detailed analysis revealed that both the steelwork and the large thrust blocks at the arch springing, the "skewbacks", needed retrofit. However, because of environmental sensitivity, no access road was permitted to the skewbacks, so everything was designed based on access from the roadway deck only.

The retrofit scheme that we adopted made use of the existing continuity of the deck from end-to-end by adding CIDH restraining piles at the abutments, while allowing for expansion. The arch ribs and main towers were strengthened, and the skewbacks modified, including the addition of tie-downs for the arches. Completed in 1997.

Awards:

• 1999 - CELSOC Engineering Excellence Award of Merit was awarded to Buckland & Taylor Ltd. for the Cold Spring Canyon and Arroyo Quemado Arch Bridges Project. This project was one of only two Merit Award winners, which was chosen by judges for entry at the ACEC (American Consulting Engineers Council) level.

• 1999 - Buckland & Taylor Ltd. was awarded an ACEC Engineering Excellence Honor Award for the Cold Spring Canyon and Arroyo Quemado Arch Bridges Project.

For more information on our bridge engineering services, please Contact Us.

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