NAME: Jobenson B. Camiguing COURSE &YR.

: BSCE V – P

REACTION PAPER

The Rio–Antirrio Bridge, officially the Charilaos Trikoupis Bridge, is a cable-stayed bridge in the
Gulf of Corinth, Greece. With a suspended deck of a span of 2,883 m over four pylons, it is one of the
world's longest multi-span cable-stayed bridges and longest of the fully suspended type. The bridge is
linking the town of Rio on the Peloponnese peninsula to Antirrio on mainland Greece by road and was
first opened to traffic on August 2004.

While watching the documentary, indeed, it is astonishing to know the different techniques and
principles applied to the structure making it a remarkable contribution to engineering innovation being
an earthquake-proof bridge. Considering the fact that the location of the bridge is prone to tectonic
movement, it is foremost approach for it to be designed an earthquake proof. But dealing with the
challenges upon construction is an outstanding work. Also knowing an additional problem from a sandy
seabed making the foundation to be unstable, it is great to know that it was solved through inserting
steel pipes on the floor to avoid it from sinking and putting a pile of gravel to answer the horizontal
movement of the foundation. Another approaches like the bridge decking where it is connected to the
pylons using jacks and dampers to absorb movement, the protection on the decking from the effect of
high winds through the use of aerodynamic spoiler-like fairing, and the use of spiral scruton strakes on
the cables are another accomplishments that are laid on the field of engineering. Knowing that it was
able to withstand to an earthquake reaching up to 7.4 on the richter scale, indeed, it is almost
completely an earthquake proof structure.

But applying it in the country, I believe this is not yet truly possible. These techniques and
principle are always available, especially that we are now into innovation, but considering that this type
of project requires the enormous support of monetary funds from the government, it will just leave our
economy into extreme danger.