Tampico Bridge

The Tampico Bridge (Spanish: Puente Tampico) is a vehicular cable-stayed bridge in Mexico, located on the Pánuco River in the city of Tampico, Tamaulipas, near to the Gulf of Mexico.

Tampico Bridge

Official name                      Puente Tampico

Crosses                               Pánuco River

Locale                                Tampico, Tamaulipas, Mexico

Design                                Cable-stayed bridge

Total length                        1,543 m (5062 ft)

Width                                 18 m (59 ft)

Height                                55 m (180 ft)

Vertical clearance                360 m (1181 ft)

Opened                               1988

The bridge has been in service since 1988 and was designed by Professor Modesto Armijo from COMEC, a Mexican engineering company. It was designed to withstand the severe hurricanes of the Gulf of Mexico. It connects the states of Tamaulipas and Veracruz.

The bridge uses an orthotropic steel deck girder for a central section of the 360 m long main span, while the rest of the main span and the short lateral spans are a prestressed concrete girder. Both steel and concrete deck girders have the same external shape. This original principle was later used at the French Normandy cable-stayed bridge (756 m main span).

The dynamic analysis of the bridge under turbulent cyclonic winds, as well as the revision of the structural project, and the geometry plus stress control of the bridge during erection, were achieved by Alain Chauvin from Sogelerg, using the French "Scanner" computer program.