Section 5 Palmetto SR826/836 Bridges (9, 11, 15 and 19) wins the NCSEA Excellence in Structural Engineering Award

Tallahassee, Fla. — The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), Community/Condotte/DeMoya JV, BCC Engineering and FINLEY Engineering Group (FINLEY) have won the National Council of Structural Engineers Association (NCSEA) Excellence in Structural Engineering Award for the Section 5 Palmetto SR 826/836 Interchange Bridges (9, 11, 15 and 19). This award program highlights some of the best examples of structural engineering and ingenuity throughout the world. Projects are judged on innovative design, engineering achievement and creativity.

460-foot launching gantry and innovative pier cap solution shown. Photo courtesy of Robert G. Holmes.

FINLEY was the Engineer of Record and provided the construction engineering on the four high-level, precast segmental bridges that traverse the core of the interchange. The bridges were built in balanced cantilever and erected with a 460-foot self-launching gantry. FINLEY’s redesign of the preliminary plan created a more open layout and eliminated four of the eight segmental bridges in the interchange. Drawing from their international expertise, Jacques Combault, FINLEY Technical Director, designed a pier cap solution to stabilize the deck and eliminate temporary supports. This technique was similar to the design of a viaduct near Paris with similar site constraints.

FINLEY integrated the design into the construction using Bridge Information Modeling (BrIM) and FINLEY proprietary software for the construction engineering. These bridges have also won the following awards: 2016 ACEC National Recognition Award, the 2016 FICE Engineering Excellence Award Grand Conceptor and the 2015 ASBI Bridge Awards of Excellence.

Key Team members on this project included:

• Owner: Florida Department of Transportation, Miami-Dade Expressway Authority
• Contractor: Community, Condotte America, Inc., De Moya Joint Venture
• Prime Design Consultant: BCC Engineering, Inc.
• Segmental Bridge Design and Construction Engineering: FINLEY Engineering Group
• Bridge Aesthetics: Touchstone Architects
• Precast Producer: Rizzani de Eccher
• Casting and Erection Equipment: DEAL
• Post-Tensioning: VSL
• Construction Engineering and Inspection: AIM Engineering and Survey, Inc.