Athabasca River Bridge

Completed in September 1993, this $3.2 million fast-track, design-build project involved the design and construction of a 280-metre-long by 11-metre-wide, four-span bridge crossing the Athabasca River. Alberta Transportation and Utilities chose Kiewit to construct the substructure and bridge deck superstructure to accommodate the expanding logging industry in the area. Accessible only by primitive logging roads, this remote jobsite required on-site electrical power generation and wireless communications.

The substructure consisted of three piers requiring separate clay cofferdams to enable construction. In addition, 30 steel H-piles were driven 19 metres in the clay soil to serve as the foundation for the bridge abutments. Once the structural steel was erected, a 241-milimetre-thick cast-in-place concrete deck was constructed. Crews mobilized a concrete batch plant on-site to batch and haul 3,300 cubic metres of concrete. The deck pour sequence was divided into sections and was completed on schedule despite an unusually wet two-month time frame.

This two-year project included driving 1,100 metres of H-piling, and placing 200 tonnes of reinforcing steel, over 2,000 tonnes of structural steel, over 26,000 tonnes of rip rap and 12,000 square metres of guidebank slope protection cloth.