Fourth bridge over Panama Canal

Soil-structure Interaction

Soil-structure Interaction for the 4th bridge over the Panama Canal

Dynamis joins the design team for the seismic design of the 4th bridge to be constructed over the Panama Canal.

The 4th bridge to be constructed over the Panama Canal (yet to be officially named) will go up right next to the Bridge of the Americas, connecting Panama City to the western part, where more than 500,000 residents reside.  The bridge is expected to improve connectivity to inner Panama, benefitting an estimated 2m people, as well as reduce the traffic on the existing Bridge of the Americas. Once constructed, the cable-stayed bridge will be 1km long, and is expected to have a life span of 100 years.

Dynamis mission

Dynamis was tasked with performing soil-structure interaction, analyzing the dynamic behavior of the foundation of the main bridge and access bridge (east and west).  A complex soil-structure interaction model has been built and validated in the frequency domain, and phenomenon such as the uplift of the foundation has been analyzed in detail.

Dynamis used the flexible volume method implemented in SASSI to estimate the acceleration time histories, spectra and foundation impedances (springs and dashpots) in each foundation and provided them to the bridge designer to be used in a global finite element bridge model and identify the seismic forces at the bridge.

Dynamis’s participation in the seismic design of the bridge ensures a safe and secure design, appropriately considering seismic forces on the piles and bridge foundation.