The Messina Strait Bridge: A Challenge and a Dream - Tapa dura

This book describes the enormous depth of work carried out since the early 1970s on the Messina Strait Bridge, up to the recent award of the detailed design and construction contract. This important work has included extensive studies, concepts and design developments, with far reaching applications, which have all confirmed the feasibility of this huge endeavour and have led to the optimisation of costs and expected performance levels.

Attention is focused not only on the design itself, but also on the context for the project (e.g. historical, geological, seismo-tectonic and wind conditions; structural and mechanical properties; project management and financial aspects; and environmental considerations), and on the great challenges involved. Thus, considering the innovations and specific solutions adopted in overcoming the challenges presented by constructing a world record span of 3,300 metres at this site, it becomes clear how the Messina Strait Crossing will take its place as a masterpiece in bridge engineering history.

This book will be of interest to bridge and structural engineers, geotechnical and wind engineers, mechanical and earthquake engineers, graduate students in all these areas and all others with a broad interest in bridge design and engineering.

About the authors:

Fabio Brancaleoni
Full Professor of Structural Engineering at the Department of Structures, University of Roma Tre, Italy. Member of the scientific committee of the Taylor&Francis Bridge Structures International Journal. His research interests comprise long span bridges, bridge aerodynamics, computational mechanics, structural diagnostics, seismic engineering. He was involved in the Messina Strait crossing project since 1974, and has also carried out research or consultancy activities for the Humber, Bosporus II, Storebælt, and Stoncutters cable supported bridges. At present he is participating in the tenders for the Izmit Bay, Fehmanrbelt and Dubai Creek crossings.

Giorgio Diana
Full professor of Applied Mechanics at Politecnico di Milano. He is Director of the Research Centre for Wind Engineering (CIRIVE) and Deputy President of the Politecnico di Milano Foundation. Professor Diana has an extensive knowledge on research and design in the fields of dynamic aspects, fluid-elasticity, aero-elasticity (vibrations of bridges and structures), rotor-dynamics, vibration problems in mechanical engineering, railway vehicles dynamics and interaction between vehicle and infrastructures (bridges, viaduct, road, railroad). The results of the research and activities in these fields are reported in a wide number of papers published on International Reviews and International Conferences Proceedings.
He is recipient of the prestigious 2009 Robert H. Scanlan Medal (ASCE).

Ezio Faccioli (2008)
Full professor of Earthquake Engineering and Engineering Seismology at Politecnico di Milano and currently in the Executive Board of the International Association of Earthquake Engineering (IAEE) and Coordinating Editor of the Journal of Seismology.
From 1990 to date, he has been overall co-ordinator or team leader in several European research projects on seismic risk, soil-structure interaction and geotechnical earthquake engineering. He also was convenor of the panel that drafted Part 5 of Eurocode 8, now a European Norm. In Italy, he is currently coordinating a research project that will produce seismic hazard evaluations for a broad spectrum of PSHA applications.
Recipent of the US Earthquake Engineering Research Institute "Outstanding Earthquake Spectra Paper Award" of 2004.

Giuseppe Fiammenghi
Chief Technical Officer of Stretto di Messina S.p.A.. Member of the Engineering Register of Rome, has covered managerial positions both in public and private companies, in Italy and abroad.
In the public sector since 1989, he has been Managing Director of Italsocotec, Vice General Manager of Servizi Tecnici and Director of Spea Ingegneria Europea S.p.A. Starting 1972, spent 17 years in Italconsult S.p.A, a private company, reaching the position of Transportation Department Director. During this period he has been responsible for important projects in Africa, South America and the Middle East.

Ian Firth
Director of Flint & Neill in London, the well known long span bridge engineering consultants. He has been involved in the design, construction and ongoing operation and maintenance of major bridge spans for nearly 30 years, and has worked on many significant suspension bridges including the Tsing Ma bridge in Hong Kong and the Severn and Humber bridges in the UK. He has been special advisor to Stretto di Messina SpA throughout the drafting of the contract specifications and design criteria, and was part of the special committee which carried out the technical evaluation of the tenders received from consortia bidding for the appointment as the General Contractor.

Niels J. Gimsing
Professor Emeritus at the Department of Civil Engineering where he acted as Full Professor in Bridge and Structural Engineering from 1976 to 2005. He has participated in the design of the Storebælt Bridge and the Øresund Bridge, and from 1985 to 1993 he was a member of the International Consulting Board for the Messina Strait Bridge. From 1967 he has been a co-owner of Gimsing & Madsen, Consulting Engineers.

Michele Jamiolkowski
Emeritus Professor of Geotechnical Engineering at Politecnico di Torino, Italy. Has been President of the ISSMGE and Chairman of the International Committee for Safeguard the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Chairman of the Committee for the Safeguard of the Monuments and Historical Buildings in Rome during the construction of the New Metro (Line C). Geotechnical consultant of Technital Engineering and Consorzio Venezia Nuova for the MOSE Project aimed at safeguarding Venice from high tides. Honorary International Member of the Japanese Geotechnical Society. Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Engineering. He has been awarded, among others: K.Terzaghi Award, ASCE - R.B. Peck Award, ASCE - E. De Beer Award, Belgian Geotechnical Society.

Peter Sluszka
In charge of long span bridge engineering for Ammann & Whitney Consulting Engineers, of New York, a company renowned for engineering of major bridges, including the design of New York’s Verrazano Narrows Bridge. He is a Registered Professional Engineer, and over a thirty-year career, has been responsible for numerous major long span bridge projects in the United States and Europe, including construction engineering for Denmark’s Great Belt Suspension Bridge, the railroad addition to Lisbon’s Tagus River Bridge, and the design review of the proposed world record span Messina Strait Bridge.

Giovanni Solari
Professor of Structural Engineering and of Wind Engineering at the University of Genova, Italy. He was the President of the International Association for Wind Engineering (IAWE) and of the Italian Association for Wind Engineering, Co-Editor-in-Chief of Wind & Structures journal, IAWE European and African Regional Coordinator, member of several Editorial and International Boards and of international committees for standards, co-responsible of the Meteo-Hydrological Centre of Liguria Region.
He carried out the wind analysis of several important structures including the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Brancusi Endless Column. He was. The American Society for Civil Engineers awarded him with the 2006 Jack Cermak Medal.

Gianluca Valensise
Geologist by training and received a PhD in Earth Sciences from the University of Rome (1987). His main fields of expertises are the investigation of large seismogenic faults and the compilation of earthquake source databases to be used as input for seismic hazard assessment.
Starting in 1996 he has participated in various efforts for the elaboration of seismic hazard maps to be used for updating the Italian seismic code.

Enzo Vullo
Chief of Suspension Bridge Engineering at Stretto di Messina Technical Direction. Member of the Engineering Register of Rome, has been working since 1978 in major engineering companies of the IRI group (national Institute for the Industrial Reconstruction), involved as technical manager in several great projects for civil, mechanical and infrastructure works in Italy and abroad. Director of Italtekna (holding of the IRI-ITALSTAT engineering companies) in 1989, he joined Stretto di Messina S.p.A. in 1991 as director of the suspension bridge design and of related studies, researches and experimentations.