“The beam launchers are now driving piles and building
the bridges at both ends,” said Gabaldo. “It is very slick
system.”
Gabaldo describes the massive machines as the only ones
like them in the world. Each one, he says, weighs about 1,000
tonnes and is almost 200 metres long.
How beam launchers work
The beam launcher works through the use of a gantry that
rests on the front edge of the already completed part of the
bridge. The gantry cantilevers forward to allow the installation
of the piles and the subsequent formation of the next
pier.
After the piles have been driven at the front of the gantry,
the pile cap and main girders of the bridge are then installed.
All this happens without builders ever having to touch down
on the ground.
“The machine basically builds the bridge,” said Gabaldo.
“At the back end of the machine you have the finished product
so your construction site is actually the beam launcher.”
Within each launcher is a tilting lead that is loaded with a
pile horizontally; this lead then rotates the pile to a vertical
position and drives it into place at the bent or pier location.
The bents in the Cartagena bridge are 37 metres apart and
each one requires the installation of at least six supporting
piles. In total, more than 800 piles will be driven to support
some 130 bents being built during the bridge’s construction,
says Gabaldo, adding that as of late April, almost two dozen
bents (or approximately 850 metres of the total bridge’s
length) had been successfully installed.
For this project, Bermingham designed a custom 48-inch
box lead based on the pile design, in this case pre-cast concrete
piles 42 metres long and one metre in diameter. The
piles have a hollow core with 160-millimetre thick walls, and
PROJECT SPOTLIGHT
CONTINUED ON PAGE 60
58 Q2 2017 www.pilingcanada.ca
/www.pilingcanada.ca
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