The 2.2-mile San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge New East Span was completed and opened to traffic on Sept. 2, 2013. It carries 300,000 vehicles each day. The East Span is the world’s longest, single?tower self-anchored suspension span (SAS) and the world’s widest bridge at 259 feet. It is located in a high seismic zone, between two major faults capable of producing large earthquakes.

Anchoring the SAS tower foundation was accomplished by the T.Y. Lin International/ Moffatt & Nichol Joint Venture using the rock socketing process. The lower, heavily?reinforced concrete portion of each pile was cast in rock sockets in bedrock. The upper, permanent steel shell was filled with more heavily reinforced concrete and welded to the concrete?encased steel footing box of the tower foundation at water level. Bay Area geology also varies along the length of the bridge, and presented immense challenges for the design and construction of the foundations.

The award will be presented to the T.Y. Lin International/ Moffatt & Nichol Joint Venture at the DFI’s 40th Annual Conference on Deep Foundations in Oakland, Calif., Oct. 12-15.

The DFI is an international association of contractors, engineers, academics and suppliers in the deep foundations industry with more than 3,300 members worldwide. For more information about the Deep Foundations Institute, visit www.dfi.org.