Recently, world leader in engineered heavy lifting and transport Mammoet successfully completed a Rapid Bridge Replacement of the Lees Avenue Bridge in Ottawa, Ontario.
During a record-setting operation, Mammoet replaced a 2,100 ton bridge over one of Ottawa’s major highways in only 2.5 hours. As hundreds of onlookers watched, Mammoet performed the heaviest lift of a structure over a freeway to date. Originally planned to take between four and six hours, the operation was conducted flawlessly and was completed ahead of schedule, allowing the city to reopen the busy thoroughfare as planned.
The city of Ottawa was pleased that they were able to limit the highway closure to a minimum. “This heavy lift project was well planned and executed and an excellent example of the teamwork required to deliver the Highway 417 component of the OLRT Project. This project was another first in North America; the heaviest lift of a multi-span structure over a freeway to date”, according to Steve Cripps, P. Eng, Director, Rail Implementation Office, City of Ottawa.
The new bridge’s design provided for a particularly complex lift; it included a curved shape, making it more difficult to align the transporters beneath the bridge, and the move was completed over a curved section of the highway. The 85 meter length and 2,100 ton weight of the bridge added to the challenge. Safety is the number one priority for Mammoet, and as such a trial lift was conducted a day prior to the lift to ensure the bridge could withstand the lift safely.
Using a 96-axle self-propelled modular transporter (SPMT) trailer, the bridge was successfully installed within the planned timeframe. The SPMT is a platform vehicle co-developed by Mammoet and Scheuerle and widely used for its exceptional weight-bearing capabilities, its versatility and its capacity to keep the load level under any circumstances.
Mammoet was commissioned by Tomlinson Ltd. Vipin Bansal, MBA, Estimation & Design Builds Manager, said “Once again, Mammoet with their hard work and efforts has proved that they are the Number One Best company to perform rapid lift bridge replacements. The Lees Ave rapid Bridge Replacement went without a glitch and it was a great team effort to make this project successful.”
The project was covered by Discovery Channel’s Daily Planet on September 18, 2014: http://www.discovery.ca/dailyplanet.
(For access in the US: http://www.discovery.ca/video?vid=445219)