International Precast Solutions abides 125-year service life model behind Gordie Howe International Bridge Specifications
One of this decade’s top bridges the world over is on track for a 2025 opening. With a contract value north of $5 billion, the 1.5-mile Gordie Howe International Bridge links Windsor, Ontario and Detroit and serves the busiest land border crossing in North America. A toll structure with six east and west traffic lanes plus an 11.5-ft. pedestrian walkway, it will operate for 30 years under a public-private partnership between the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority (WDBA) and Bridging North America. The latter is a joint venture of Texas-based Fluor Corp., plus ACS Infrastructure Canada and Aecon Group Inc., both of Toronto.
One major aspect of the project for which supply chain, fabrication and delivery stars aligned is the main span bridge deck, a .53-mile stretch of precast concrete panels and high-performance concrete closures. Excepting SRM Concrete, whose ready mixed plant abuts the Detroit approach, no primary Gordie Howe International Bridge supplier or subcontractor was better situated to Bridging North America staging yards than International Precast Solutions, LLC. A member of The Prestressed Group in Oldcastle, Ontario, International Precast operates a bridge structures plant in River Rouge—bordering the Motor City to the south along the Detroit River. The operation is less than two miles from the new bridge’s Detroit approach and proved equal to timely casting of 1,260 deck panels, most 31.5- x 15-ft. and 10-in. thick. The precast concrete schedule hovered 16,000 yards of 10,000 psi mixes, designed with a 60 percent slag and 40 percent Type I/II portland cement blend.
WDBA tasked Bridging North America with quality control measures befitting a 125-year service life structure. Heavy on stainless steel rebar, coupled with transverse and longitudinal post tensioning ducts, the main span precast deck panels were subject to a seven-day, 100 percent humidity curing cycle. In the face of 2022-2023 market and supply challenges confronting stainless steel buyers, International Precast and Bridging North America officials worked with Buffalo, N.Y.-based Salit Specialty Rebar to ensure that their 2,500-ton, pre-bent reinforcement order was delivered as scheduled.
International Precast Solutions dispatched panels to the Detroit staging yard, set up on acreage adjacent to an SRM Concrete ready mixed plant. The Detroit approach and cable stay tower are on right of way between the SRM plant and 28,000-ton Holcim US terminal. Bridging North America established ramps at the base of each cable stay pier so International Precast could ferry trailered panels to the Windsor staging area.
PANEL PRACTICE
Deck panel engineering, production, staging and placement emulated specifications and best practices that Bridging North America partner Fluor Corp. affirmed with the Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge construction. Fully opened in 2018, the three-mile Hudson River crossing between New York’s Westchester and Rockland Counties commanded more than 3 million square feet of precast deck panels.
After securing the Gordie Howe International Bridge main span deck contract, International Precast configured a 13-piece casting bed and curing chambers for production of six panels per day on a five-day work week. The River Rouge plant schedule reflected Bridging North America’s staging of up to 400 panels each in Windsor and Detroit yards. The producer exceeded quality control expectations, based on internal testing data and that of separate WDBA and Bridging North America inspectors. Prestressed Group CFO Alex Baker credits plant, contractor and owner teams with the concrete schedule success and Calgary engineer Kassian Dyck & Associates with meticulous panel detailing. Tekla 3D modeling, programmed for rebar or steel clash detection, equipped the engineer to provide shop drawings steering International Precast to panel tolerances resulting in zero rebar clashing conditions throughout the half-mile main span.
Toward mid-2024, crews capped nearly two years of placing the precast deck panels across or along structural steel edge and redundancy girders, floor beams and soffit panels. Main span deck work was sequenced from Canadian and U.S. sides, as ironworkers placed the precast panels and steel members in 123-ft. wide, 49-ft. long segments. The 12-panel segments bear on 216 cable stays supported by twin, 722-ft. piers.
Upon mid-span closure completion in July, Aecon Lead Engineer Jaime Castro-Maier characterized the main span deck’s segment-by-segment operation as a “marathon of construction cycles” culminating in precise alignment of the Canada and U.S. halves. “At the final point, we were within a few millimeters of where we were expecting to be,” he added. “If you look at the magnitude of this construction site and the size of the bridge deck—to talk about millimeters was very rewarding.”