Rio - Antirrio Fixed Link, Greece

A design and build contract was let between the Greek Government and GTM of France for the construction of a cable-stayed bridge across the Corinth Channel, near Patras, linking the town of Rio on the Peloponnese peninsula to Antirrio on mainland Greece by road. This fixed link forms part of a road scheme linking the Peloponnese and the Greek Mainland. Officially known as the Charilaos Trikoupis Bridge, the Rio-Antirion bridge is one of the world’s longest multi-span cable-stayed bridges and longest of the fully suspended type.

GCG had two roles. Initially, GCG was involved as advisor to the Greek Ministry of Public Works in the design and supervision of the offshore site investigation. This work included designing and supervising a programme of laboratory testing, carried out in Greece, Germany, the UK and Norway, involving sophisticated static stress path testing and dynamic testing, including resonant column and simple shear, all aimed at characterising the clayey silts, clays and sands forming the founding materials in this highly seismic area. GCG prepared the Interpretative Report on the site investigation data, which was issued to the international tenderers.

Subsequently GCG was appointed as advisor to High Point-Rendel in the tender evaluation, involving a detailed assessment of the likely performance of the proposed foundation systems and ground improvement methods.