Before breakfast, I padded down to the beach and scanned Tampa Bay. In the morning haze I glimpsed two majestic sailboats cresting a huge wave more than a mile offshore. I waited for the boats to dip back into the water, but they didn’t move. Behind them, I suddenly noticed what looked like twin railroad bridges, one of them missing a large section. It was then that I realized how different the new Sunshine Skyway is from its predecessor – aesthetically as well as structurally.
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Bridge designers chose an elliptical shape for the Sunshine Skyway’s piers, which are paired to support the main pylons. The piers are more flexible in the longitudinal direction, permitting expansion and contraction in the bridge. But they resist bending in the other direction, so they’re less vulnerable to broadside winds. Engineers say the bridge can withstand hurricane gusts of 190 mph. In the water, cylindrical bumpers protect the piers from ship impact … Some [concrete roadway] segments weight as much as 124 mid-size automobiles. The new Tampa Bay bridge contains 180,000 cu. yd. of concrete, enough to pave every residential driveway in Bradenton, Fla., located at its southern tip. Almost 5.4 million ft. of steel post-tensioning cables strengthen the concrete. Laid end to end, they would stretch from St. Petersburg, Fla., to New York.
Excerpted from “Inside the Sunshine Skyway” by Dawn Stover. Printed in popular Science, July 1987, Volume 231, number 1.