The French Composite: A Bridge for Normandy

Aside from its record breaking 856 m span, the most important fact about France’s 2,141 m Pont de Normandie—the Normandy Bridge—is that it is being built at all. The bridge will be Europe’s first cable-stayed longitudinally composite bridge, and only the third in the world, after Mexico’s Tampico Bridge and Japan’s Ikuchi Bridge, which has a span of 490 m. Throughout the Normandy Bridge’s 15 year history, many said the bridge couldn’t be built. Some experts said it shouldn’t be attempted. Today, after three years of design, debate and redesign, plus two years of construction, the Normandy Bridge is on the way to a late 1994 completion even though the contractors are still fine-tuning their construction methods. The foundations are in, the towers are above deck level and the approach viaducts are more than half done. The first cantilevered deck segments were poured in fall 1992 and erection of the steel portion of the deck will get under way in fall 1993.