Governor of Paraná visits Guaratuba Bridge Work

Last Saturday (August 9), the governor of Paraná, Carlos Massa Ratinho Júnior, visited the construction site of the Guaratuba Bridge on the state’s coast, which has reached 70% completion. The project has been awaited by the people of Paraná for over 40 years and has recently made significant progress on the road accesses that will connect the main structure to PR-412 on both sides of Guaratuba Bay.

The most advanced services in recent weeks have been the retaining structures on the Guaratuba side, including soil nailing, root piles, anchors, and locking beams, as well as excavation to lower the hill for access to the Caieiras region. The access section on the Guaratuba side is about 940 meters long, while the Matinhos side is approximately 880 meters. Combined with the 1.24 km of the bridge itself, the total project length is 3.07 km.

The construction is currently in one of its most critical phases: building the central span using the balanced cantilever technique, a method that allows large sections to be built without a supporting pillar. This 160-meter span will enable vessels to pass underneath without obstruction. The structure is being built from two central pillars, with symmetrical segments extending to both sides until they meet in the center, connecting to the pre-cast beam section at the other end. This technique requires precision, planning, and specialized labor. Each bridge segment takes an average of 14.5 days to be completed.

Soon, the project will enter the phase of installing the stay cables – the cables that will support the central span of the bridge. In the cable-stayed section, the most complex and imposing part of the project, the infrastructure (piles and capping blocks) and the mesostructure (pillars) of the main towers are already completed. So far, 58 piles have been concreted: 23 in the cable-stayed section and 35 in the pre-cast section. In total, there will be 64 piles: 24 in the cable-stayed section and 40 in the pre-cast section.

Currently, the project employs nearly a thousand people, most of whom are local residents. Once completed, the bridge will have four traffic lanes in both directions, two safety lanes, rigid concrete barriers, sidewalks with bike lanes, and guardrails. The base of the structure will include a total of 64 piles, with 24 in the cable-stayed section and 40 in the pre-cast section. The bridge will use 2,500 tons of steel and 17,000 m³ of concrete. This is a project that has been planned since 1989 in the State Constitution and only began to become a reality for the population in 2023.

Visit from O Empreiteiro Magazine

It was a busy week for the construction team. Two days before the governor’s visit, the project received a visit from Juliana Sampaio, editor of O Empreiteiro Magazine. During the visit, the journalist interviewed the contract management team and the bridge designer, Professor Rui Oyamada, one of Brazil’s leading experts in projects of this nature. Rui is a professor at the Polytechnic School of the University of São Paulo , as well as managing partner at “Outec Engineering” and a member of national and international engineering associations.

Learn more about the current status of the project in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZYFp1cd6f4&t=2s