MACTEC Bridge Project Wins Quality Award

The Concrete Council of St. Louis has chosen a MACTEC project, the Fee Fee Road Bridge, for a 2003 Quality Award. Our team from the St. Louis office provided civil, structural and construction engineering on this project, including the preliminary location study, bridge type study, preliminary design, final design, and construction supervision.

Located in Maryland Heights, Missouri, the Fee Fee Bridge is a 3-span structure consisting of an eastbound and a westbound bridge that function independently. The twin bridges are 577 ft. in length and carry 10 lanes of traffic. The middle span is 220 ft. long and the bridge is designed for AASHTO HS-25 loading. The bridge was finished 3 months ahead of schedule and within the original contractor's bid price. Total construction cost was $8,000,000.

The concrete deck was formed using the Efco Deck Forming System that reduced man hours and other associated construction costs. The westbound and eastbound bridge decks were completed with a bridge deck machine in four separate pours, two for each bridge.

High temperatures during concrete placement required the use of chilled water to lower the concrete mix temperature by 10º F. The pier and abutment foundations are supported on steel pipe piles, filled with concrete. The original design was based on closed-end steel pipe piles. During pile driving, an unexpected sand layer was encountered which made penetration to the desired depth difficult. MACTEC analyzed the situation and modified the design to use open-end pipe piles. The open-end piles reduced resistance from the sand layers and developed a soil plug resulting in concrete filled-end bearing piles.

The bridge is open to traffic and currently carries 16,400 ADT with an expected increase to 66,000 ADT by 2017 with 12% heavy trucks.