The Northaven Tail Bridge was installed with the help of the Mammoet team in Dallas, Texas over the weekend.
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The job was completed in the form of the only S-curved, network tied bridge in the world, which was efficiently set by Mammoet’s team, diverse highway and bridge contractor, Ragle Inc and bridge designer, HNTB.
The 61m bridge – designed to link pedestrian trails – was assembled offsite, jacked-up and loaded onto a pair of double 8-line SPMT (self-propelled modular transporter) trailers. Engineers then utilised a gantry system with a jack and slide system on top; the method enabled three directional movements to fine-tune adjustments during setting and account for misalignments.
Saturday night saw the highway fully closed to traffic, so that the job could run safely and smoothly. The bridge was transported to its installation position and the gantries were built around it.
There was at least one frontage road open, allowing flow of traffic to move along the US 75 without significant detour.
The bridge was then lifted off the trailers using the gantry and track combination, as it was raised above the road surface, skidded over, and set it on its piers at approximately 11am on the Sunday morning.
“I am very proud to have contributed on a project that provides such a positive impact to the Dallas community. The success of this job was only made possible through all the hard work of everyone involved,” said Mammoet Engineer, Matthew Berlanga. “Our top-notch crew, equipment and standard of working within Mammoet is what sets us apart and makes jobs like these seem easy,” Matthew added.
Project Manager of Construction Phase Services at HNTB, Kira Larson added to the praise.
“The Northaven Trail Bridge is a highly complex structure with inherent erection challenges, and HNTB, TxDOT, Ragle and Mammoet needed to proactively communicate throughout construction to keep the project on schedule. When changes needed to be made at the construction site, the team would quickly collaborate to find solutions,” Kira said.
Upon completion of the 20-hour project, traffic flow returned back to normal.