USA-based transport engineering specialist Berard has been busy delivering a portal crane near Seattle, Washington, and transporting and installing a bridge span in Providence County, Rhode Island.
Berard was tasked with loading, securing and offloading and setting the portal crane near Seattle. It used 24 axle lines of SPMTs to lift and transport the 500-ton (453.6-tonne) crane, with its modular beam system used to provide safety and security during the move. Once the crane had been side-loaded onto the deck barge, it was fastened and set sail to its final location, wherein Berard’s team then manoeuvred it onto the rail and lowered it into position.
An existing portal crane was also loaded out from the pier onto a deck barge. Once on deck, it was rotated 90 degrees to prepare it for the water transit phase and was then offloaded at a recycling facility for decommissioning.
For the bridge installation in Providence County, Berard engineers conceived a shoring plan to load the span at a slope to accommodate the height differences at the east and west support supports at the installation point. The loaded height at the west end of the span was 15.9 in (40.4 cm) and the east end 18.3 in (46.5 cm).
There was limited working space, so the SPMT power packs were mounted on top of the SPMTs to lessen the length of the overall transport setup to make manoeuvring the span onto the roadway and the transit to the installation site simpler. After the roadway was closed off to traffic, Berard’s engineers went to the installation point and lowered the span onto the supports and into final placement.
In November 2024, Berard boosted its SPMT fleet with further axle lines from Scheuerle.
