跨越世纪之桥-外文翻译.docxVIP

A Bridge For All CenturiesAn extremely long-and record setting-main span was designed for the second bridge to across the Panama Canal in order to meet the owner’s requirement that no piers be placed in the water.Because no disruption of canal traffic was permitted at any time,the cable-stayed bridge of cast-in-place cancrete was carefully constructed using the balanced-cantilever method.In 1962 ,the Bridge of Americas(Puente de las America) opened to traffic,serving as the only fixed link across the Panama Canal .The bridge was designed to carry 60,000 vehicles per day on four lanes, but it has beenoperating above its capacity for many years.Toalleviate bottlenecks on the route that the bridge carries over the canal-the Pan-American Highway(Inter-American Highway)-and promotegrowth on the western side of Panama,the country’s Ministry of Public Works(Ministerio de ObrasPublicas,or MOP )decided to build a new highway systerm linking the northern part of Panama City,on the eastern side of the canal, to the town of Arraijan,located on the western side of the canal.The Centennial Bridge –named to commemorate 100 years of Panamanian independence-has noe been constructed and, when opend, will carry six lanes of traffic. This cable-stayed bridge of cast-in-place cancrete features a main span of 420m,the longest such span for this type of bridge in the Western Hemisphere.In 200 the MOP invited international bridge design firms to compete for the design of the crossing, requesting a two-package proposal:onetechinical, the other financial. A total of eight proposals were received by December 2000 from established bridge design firms all over the world. After short-listing three firms on the basis of the technical merits of their proposals, the MOP selected T.Y.Lin International, of San Francisco, to prepare the bridge design and provide field construction support based on the firm’s financial package.The Centennial Bridge desige process was unique and aggressive,incorporating