Technical Challenges
The depth of the water offers little challenge, as the strait is no deeper than 180 ft (55 m). The tides and currents in the area are not severe. However, the route would lie just south of the Arctic Circle, be subject to long dark winters and extreme weather (average winter lows −20 °C (−4 °F) with possible lows approaching −50 °C (−58 °F)), and so building activity will likely be restricted to five months of the year. The weather also poses challenges to exposed steel. In Lin's design, concrete covers all structures, to simplify maintenance and to offer additional stiffening. Also, while there are no icebergs in the Bering strait, ice floes up to 6 ft (2 m) thick are in constant motion during certain seasons, which could produce forces in the order of 5,000 short tons-force (44,000 kN; 10,000,000 lbf) on a pier.
Read more about this topic: Bering Strait Crossing
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