Case Study

Initially Proposed Mississippi River Bridge

 Proposed record-breaking cable stayed road bridge

 Detailed advanced 3D nonlinear and dynamic analysis
 Staged construction incorporating creep and post-tensioning

If it had been built, the initial proposed New Mississippi River Bridge would have been a record-
breaking, cable-stayed structure linking the States of Illinois and Missouri in the USA, helping to
relieve traffic on other bridges across the river. The designer, Modjeski and Masters, was chosen
by the Illinois and Missouri Departments of Transportation to perform both the bridge-type study
and to provide preliminary and final design for the proposed crossing.

Facts and figures

 At 222 feet (68m) in width, the Mississippi River Bridge would have been the world’s widest
cable-stayed structure.
 It was designed to carry eight traffic lanes with shoulders that provided for four additional lanes
in the future.
 The total length of the bridge was approximately 3,150 feet (961m).
 The main span of 2,000 feet (610m) would have been the longest clear span across the
Mississippi River, the longest cable-stayed span in the Western hemisphere and the fifth-longest
cable-stayed span in the world.
 Two 510 foot (155m) high single pylon towers soared 435 feet (133m) above the roadway.
  It would have been the first major cable-stayed bridge to use three planes of cables in the main
span.

Modjeski and Masters used LUSAS Bridge to assist with a number of global and local analyses of the
structure because of the advanced 3D nonlinear, dynamics and staged construction facilities that it offers
for this type of work.

Analyses with LUSAS Bridge included:

 Static analysis under  Moving load analyses,  Nonlinear static stability

dead loads including fatigue load analyses of the free-standing
determination towers and of the completed
bridge

 Frequencies and  Spectral earthquake  Modelling of creep in the

mode shapes analyses in 3D concrete towers during
construction and in service to
model code CEB-FIP90

 Staged construction  Detailed analysis of  Detailed analysis of steel plate

analysis of the deck forces in cellular stresses at connections and
erection sequence concrete components cable anchorages

Staged construction modelling

Following costings an alternative crossing solution was sought.
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