CHACAO BRIDGE PROJECT - PILA CENTRAL - MASTERING THE TASK

The construction of the Chacao Bridge aims at connecting the continent with the Chiloé Island, located 1.100 km south of Santiago de Chile, in the Los Lagos Region, 48 km away from Puerto Montt and only 5 km away from Pargua. Once the project is completed, there will be no interruption between the continent and the Chiloé Island. The country will be permanently connected from Arica in the North of Chile to Quellón in the Chiloé Island, through Route 5, which will be extended for 190 kilometres.
The bridge will cut the time required to cross the channel to just 3 minutes: this is a major improvement considering the actual trip time of about 30 to 45 minutes that the ferry takes to cross the channel, without taking into account the extreme weather conditions the channel faces throughout the seasons.
The length of the bridge will be 2,574 m and will consists of three main pylons, one in the middle of the channel and two on each side, namely the North Pylon on the continent side and the South Pylon on the Chiloé’s side. The lights between the Central and North Pylons will stretch for 1,553 m , while the ones between the Central and South Pylons will cover a 1,055m length, thus becoming the longest suspension bridge in South America.

The company TREVI CHILE SPA was selected by the consortium to carry out the foundations of the bridge piles; namely, the Central Pylon - already finished -, and the North and South Pylons that are currently being built.
The foundation works of the central pylon consisted in the execution of 36 piles with 2.5 m wide diameters and lengths of 54 m for type 1 piles and 58 m for types 2 and 3 approximately, each of them excavated from a Jack Up barge.