Abidjan’s airport link
26 June 2014Sarens used a modular barge to assemble a 1.5km bridge in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. The bridge links the city with the air port consists of 30 spans, all made out of 2 pre-constrained 1,000t concrete beams. The beams were made on site and then installed by Sarens.
First, the beams were skidded transversally and placed onto sarbogies. The beams were then moved by the bogies and loaded onto a modular container barge. Finally, after being jacked up by a CS250 the beams were installed onto their piles. All 60 elements with a weight between 979t and 1,026t were installed in this way.
The project saw Sarens use its new Sarens modular barge (SMB) for the first time. The modular barge consisted of 20ft and 40ft units which could be connected to adapt to the size of a channel or the width of a lock. Sarens said that this modular structure allowed for a cost-effective mobilisation thanks to the certified container sized dimensions of the modules, which makes them stackable. Another new technology used for the first time during this project was Sarbogies; a new alternative for skidding.
