Building Bridges

Implementing post-tensioning into bridge construction can result in savings of concrete.
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As the Middle East develops, so too do the techniques and trends for bridge construction. CW discovers the systems used to save time, energy and materials.

Twenty or so years ago, bridges passing through the Middle East were built to run over vast open deserts with few obstacles to contend with.

Now, new highways are going live, islands are being built at sea and buildings are rising from the sands. Bridges have to get over such obstructions and, as a result, their design and construction has had to become much more advanced.

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SAVING TIME
One of the knock-on effects of a developing city is the rise in population, which leads to congestion. So, when building bridges, contractors now have to work faster to avoid interfering with other infrastructure.

“Constructing a bridge is often a significant degree more complicated than building other structures, given the presence of live waterways, roads, and railways,” says Warwick Ironmonger general manager of Nasa Structural Systems in the Middle East, which offers services in post-tensioning, external pre-stressing, stay cables, heavy lifting and strengthening.

“These [obstacles] may not only restrict access but often demand the completion of the structure in the shortest possible time to minimise the disturbance of existing traffic.”

Consultants working on the Al Wadha Road project in Sharjah, UAE were given just two years to close one of the emirate’s busiest highways in order to carry out their work, which included the construction of a 550m-long viaduct.

RJR Engineering is one company that offers a solution aimed at meeting the needs of developers who need to construct a bridge quickly and effectively.

The company supplies a system that can be moved along a bridge without dismantling. The system has unique features, which enable quick and easy assembling.

“We can move the system three times without dismantling it. If you have lots of repetition, you don’t need to keep taking it up and down, you can move the whole system as a big chunk,” says RJR managing director Roger Ratcliffe.

“The equipment is robust, thus ideally suited to the rough and tumble conditions on civil engineering sites. It is not unusual to see our large tables being carried between structures with large all-terrain fork lifts.”