Bridge Crossing Over Yuribey River Floodplain

The bridge crossing over the Yuribey River floodplain is the most complicated section of the Obskaya – Bovanenkovo railroad, the major transportation thoroughfare to the Yamal Peninsula’s largest gas condensate field – Bovanenkovo. The bridge crossing is unparalleled in the world’s construction practice, both in terms of the design, as well as the climatic and geocryogenic conditions of construction and operation.

Stretching 3.9 kilometers, it is the world’s longest bridge located beyond the Polar Circle. Its total weight exceeds 30,000 tons, service life – 100 years.

Enlarged photo (JPG, 1.2 MB)

The bridge was successfully erected on the soil that is almost unsuitable for construction work – it is the permafrost mass with cryopegs (intra-permafrost saline water lens remaining liquid even at subzero temperatures from minus 10 to minus 30 degrees Celsius).

The bridge consists of 107 typical spans, each 34.2 meters long, and 2 through trusses, each 110 meters long. The spans and trusses are supported by 110 bridge arms made of the metal pipes 1.2–2.4 meters in diameter filled with reinforced concrete. The arms penetrate the permafrost soil to the depth of 20–40 meters. Owing to cutting-edge technologies and a special freezing method (thermal stabilization), the arms practically freeze into the ice (permafrost) thus giving the bridge additional rigidity. The novel technologies elaborated by Russian researchers and designers prevent the permafrost soil from thawing.