Sometimes I am proud of what I do. It is not because of how intelligent I am or what I achieve in my career. It is because the nature of the kind of work I do. Quite a few times I told my sons, "look at that building, Dad worked on that project ...", when I passed by a project I built. I believe most construction workers do the same.
Last night a friend of mine showed us some photos of her recent trip to the US. Surprisedly, some photos of Hoover Dam were in her album. This made one of my long time want to do tasks started - to put together some of the video clips and materials and make a blog of the Hoover Dam Bypass - one of the best civil engineering projects.
Opened on October 19, 2010, this four-lane highway bridge provides a crossing of the Colorado River for US Route 93, linking Nevada with Arizona about 1,600 feet (about 500 meters) downstream from the Hoover Dam. At 840 feet (260 meters) above the Colorado River, this bridge is the second-highest in the US, following the Royal Gorge Bridge. The project started in 2001 and successfully completed in 2010 within budget at a cost of $240 million, in which the bridge portion cost $114 million.
The bridge was built by of sequence of temporary towers on each side, segmented arches by cable stays, removal of the towers and cable stays, vertical columns, girders and decks. The construction of this bridge had many many challenges but When the two halves of the arches met at the center point, they were only 9.5 mm apart.
For reference below is some background info of the original Hoover Dam Project.
