Mammoet has installed the New Wear footbridge in Sunderland, England.
The 1,150-tonne, 250-m bridge will connect pedestrian and cyclist traffic from the city centre to the Stadium of Light – home of Sunderland AFC.
After being assembled in Ghent, Belgium by Victor Buyck Steel Construction, Mammoet was tasked with shipping the four bridge sections to the northeast of England and to facilitate its construction in as few modules as possible.
Together with Belgium-based marine heavy-lift company HEBO, Mammoet arranged for the sections to be shipped across two voyages spaced a month apart. This allowed its operations team time to erect the first two sections before preparing for the arrival of the final two.
On the north side of the River Wear, an LR 11350 crawler crane was used to lift the first two sections from a barge, which were then put on concrete plinths. The crane was then dismantled and moved to the south of the river, ready for the second shipment.
The third bridge section was placed on plinths. The final piece – measuring 105 m – was lifted from the barge using strand jacks connected to the previously installed sections. Strand jacks were used as the final, centre section was 300 tonnes heavier than the other parts and the crawler crane lacked the capacity to perform the heavy lift alone.
The crawler crane came directly from another project at the port of Nigg in Scotland. Its parts were transported to Sunderland using 50 conventional trailers.
“During assembly of a crawler crane, you need to bring in each section as you would build it,” said Richard Gatenby, project manager at Mammoet. “We needed to make sure that as the crane was coming from Nigg, the trailers were arriving in the right order and there was no breakdown in communication. We sent the client our transport schedule and plan, so they were aware of what was moving and when.”
The bridge’s curved bottom and angled tops meant careful jacking was needed to clear low bridges along canals, both in Belgium and in Sunderland. Space restrictions were also an issue for the crane on the south side of the River Wear.
