Through April 2010:

The Huey Long Bridge, originally opened to traffic in 1935 is a combined rail and highway structure crossing the Mississippi River north of New Orleans, LA.  The widening of the superstructure changes the two 9-foot lanes (in each direction), to three 11-foot lanes, with appropriate shoulders. 

The widening will utilize a unique solution by erecting trusses parallel to the existing ones and will incorporate the existing cantilevered floorbeam brackets in order to support the widened roadways and maintain traffic during construction. 

The existing structure is being retrofitted so that it can be connected to the approximately 17,500 tons of new steel.  This retrofit includes the removal of approximately 60,000 existing rivets and their replacement with high strength permanent bolts. 

The Mississippi River in New Orleans is a heavily traveled shipping channel.  To minimize the risk of ship impact to traditional steel erection fasework in the river and to meet stringent USCG navigation clearance requirements, MTI is going to use an innovative method to erect 3 of the 4 spans, span by span, thus eliminating the need for falsework in the river.  The exception is the West Bank anchor span, which will be constructed with a modified stick build method since it is partially over land.

The span by span erection method utilizes temporary stabilizing frames that span between the bottom chords of the proposed widening trusses and have stabilizing towers to brace the compression chord of the truss while lifting.  These stabilzing frames and the actual trusses will be erected on barges and floated into place directly underneath the bridge.  The whole system of trusses and stabilizing frames will then be lifted at the four corners by strand jacks supported on top of the widened pier trusses of the bridge.  During the lift, the trusses will be positioned outside of the pier trusses to allow them to be lifted to their final height.  Once the trusses have been lifted 150 vertical feet, the stabilizing frames will telescope inward and pull the widening trusses transversely and then they will be lowered slightly onto their permanent barriers.

Rivets Removed and Replaced with Bolts:  60,687 of 60,687  (100%)

Retro-fit Steel Erected: 407,554 lbs of 423,435 lbs (96%)

Bearings Installed:  6 of 10

Span 1 Widening Truss Erected:  3,008 tons of 4,327 tons (70%)

Span 2 Widening Truss Erected: 286 tons of 2,730 tons (10%)

Span 3 Widening Truss Erected: 308 tons of 4,327 tons (7%)

Span 4 Widening Truss Erected: 89 tons of 2,611 tons (3%)

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