Caltrans crews have completed both the replacement of the damaged portion of the eyebar on the East Span of the Bay Bridge, and the removal of the temporary fix installed in October.

Caltrans began its long-term repair of the failed eyebar on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge Dec. 11. The damaged eyebar was discovered during the Labor Day weekend bridge closure.

Work on the eyebar did not require a full bridge closure; instead, crews worked overnight, which required three lanes to close on the upper deck and one lane on the lower deck. The repair and related lane closures lasted approximately three weeks

“This is the right fix and a long-term one that should keep the 73-year old bridge safer until it is replaced,” said Caltrans Director Randell Iwasaki.

The design of the long-term repair was done by Caltrans, with input and assistance from independent experts and the contractor, American Bridge-Fluor (A Joint Venture), which is the primary contractor building the self-anchored suspension span on the new Bay Bridge and has a significant amount of experience in steel bridge erection and repair, including the repair of eyebars.

The repair entailed cutting and removing approximately 12 ft. (3.6 m) of the cracked eyebar, and replacing the removed section with new structural steel that was spliced onto the remainder of the existing eyebar.

Expert input was provided by Frieder Seible, dean of the Jacobs School of Engineering at the University of California at San Diego, member of the Toll Bridge Program’s Seismic Safety Peer Review Panel and former adjunct professor of Engineering at Columbia University; Ahmad Itani, professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Nevada at Reno; and Federal Highway Administration Chief Bridge Engineer Myint Lwin.

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