Bridge Protection of the Rosario-Victoria Bridge, Argentina

The fixed link between the cities of Rosario and Victoria completed in 2002, provides a second connection between the two provinces of Santa Fe and Entre Rios in Argentina. This project provided much-needed, easier and quicker road access between the cities.

The Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) project was awarded to an international joint venture of contractors and includes partial state funding for construction and 25 years of private operation. The criteria included a main span of more than 330 m, the minimum total length for bridges in the flood land. One design challenge during the tendering phase was ship impact protection structures. Because of deep foundations with provisions for deep scouring, separate protection structures were an important solution. However, without the results from a series of studies, such as hydraulic analysis, geo-technical investigation and marine traffic, the optimisation at the time of tendering could not be precise. This paper describes the ship impact protection system implemented.