Sarens Australia has successfully installed the Sydney Gateway Bridge in trying circumstances for the John Holland Seymour Whyte JV.
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To install the bridge, Sarens needed to shift three pairs of girders that, once all supporting machinery had been factored in, weighed around 700 tonnes each. According to Project Manager, Hugo Saua, the project was rife with potential banana skins that needed to be navigated by the global engineered heavy lifting specialist.
“One of the greatest challenges faced, was to come up with a solution that causes minimum stress impact to the structure during transport and manipulation,” he said. “Another challenge was to precisely move the bridge sections over a public bridge while keeping the ground pressure under the allowable parameters of the public spaces.”
To complete its scope of work, Sarens mobilised its Kamag SPMT K2400ST, a CS250 in-house designed jacking tower system, and SBL1100 gantry system, devising a technical solution that addressed both challenges outlined by Saua. Due to technical challenges caused by delays during assembly activities, Sarens and the JV needed to install one of the main structures earlier than anticipated to avoid further delays. A new, flexible solution was needed, which Sarens and the JV devised together to allow for the bridge sections to be installed in a different order.
For the operation, activities were divided into three stages: first, the bridge sections were picked up by SPMTs and placed on the deployment position. Then, the bridge sections were transported from deployment to installation position during a four-hour window before, lastly, the bridges were lowered by deploying a combination of SPMTs and jacking towers to be installed.
“Sydney Gateway has been a great project, and we are proud to have completed it safely with zero lost time,” said Saua. “Sarens once again proved that we are always committed to provide flexible solutions, adjusted to client requirements, schedule and needs.”
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