e-mosty September 2018 Vessels and Equipment Used for Bridge Construction | Page 15

Samuel Beckett Bridge, Ireland Removal of old Botlek Bridge, The Netherlands
The Samuel Beckett Bridge is a Santiago Calatrava
designed asymmetric cable stayed signature swing bridge
that spans 124m across the River Liffey in Dublin. In July 2015, the new Botlek Bridge across the river Oude
Maas came into use as part of the reconstruction of the
Dutch A15 motorway near Rotterdam.
Dublin City Council awarded the construction contract to
the Dutch construction company Hollandia Infra –part of
the Graham Hollandia Joint Venture. The old bridge had been in use since 1955. It was a 505m
long steel lattice bridge with a movable 55m span lifting
section, a width of 23m and a clearance height of 8
metres.
The main (moving) span of the bridge is a cable stayed
structure, with a single plane of 31 fore stays, two large
splaying back-stays and a single curved forward leaning
tubular tapered tower. The bridge carries four lanes of
traffic and two footpaths.
The bridge rotates through an angle of 90 degrees to
allow ships to pass along the river. The rotating
mechanism is housed in the concrete support pier.
After completion of the bridge at the Hollandia wharf in
Krimpen aan den IJssel, the complete assembled moving
span of the bridge was transferred by ALE Heavylift to the
91.44 m long offshore barge ‘UR-96’ and prepared for
towed transport by sea. For the 628 nautical mile (1,163
km) towage to Dublin, the Dutch tug ‘RT Magic’ was
chartered. This tug has an engine output of 6,300 BHP, a
bollard pull of 78-ton and is operated by Kotug
International of Rotterdam
The new Botlek Bridge is 1,200 meters long, and has two
movable 92m span lifting sections. This makes it one of
the largest lift bridges in Europe. In its closed position,
the bridge has a clearance height of almost 15 meters,
which means that the number of bridge openings for
shipping per day has considerably reduced.
The contract for the removal of the old bridge sections
was awarded to Bonn & Mees Floating Sheerlegs, which
used its 1,800-ton SWL unit ‘Matador 3’ for this purpose.
In the final quarter of 2017 a total of 2,000-tons of steel
of the bridge was transferred to a local recycling
company. The most significant and challenging operation
was the lifting of a bridge section 80 metres in length.
Construction started in Rotterdam in May 2007 and
consisted of assembling eight steel sections to form the
complete 124 m long swing span of the bridge. This
structure was moved 628 miles by barge from the
Netherlands steelworks. It was a weeklong journey
through the English Channel and the Irish Sea.
Figure 25: The bridge transported on ´UR-96´
Source: hollandiainfra.nl
Figures 26 and 27: Removal of the old bridge sections with ´Matador 3´
Photo Credit: Bonn & Mees
3/2018