The new bridge, which will link the area in front of the city’s busy railway station and Piazzale Roma, where the bus terminal is located, has the working name of Calatrava, after its designer, Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, who designed the Athens Olympic sports complex and the Palace of the Arts in Valencia and successfully bid to design the Venetian bridge in 1999.

Italian firm Cignoni built the steel structure of the glass and Istrian stone bridge. The first stage of bridge installation was transport, lifting into place and installation of two shoulder sections, mounted on either side of the canal. Each section was 15m (50ft) long, 8m wide, and weighs 85t (94 US tons).

Cignoni appointed Italian heavy lift and transport company Fagioli to carry out a door-to-door transport package. “Fagioli was responsible for management of the operation, the engineering of all the phases, supply of all materials and staff required and interaction with all the authorities involved—permits of all kinds, including canal navigation, police, etc.,” said Fagioli business development manager Fabrizio Ferrari.

The two side sections of the bridge were loaded on two Cometto self-propelled modular transporter modules at the Fagioli stockyard area in Porto Marghera. They rolled on to the barge Susanna along with the telescopic crane used for the lift. Each SPMT module has a payload of 32t per axle. Two four-axle modules were used for each section.

At 50m long and 16m wide, Susanna was propelled by a pusher boat and manoeuvred with the support of four motor barges. Although all transport work was planned by Fagioli to take place at night and mostly on weekends, the city of Venice still had to close the canal during work.

The crane was set up in travel configuration during transport from Porto Marghera to the lift site. The barge had to take on extra water to make it underneath the famous 16th century Rialto bridge, one of the most crowded vantage points along the route.

The main barge was moored alongside the installation site for the crane to be erected into working condition and rigged, before being moved into the lifting position. Fagioli chose a crane with a telescopic boom because it was much easier to handle and could be positioned more precisely than a lattice-boom model, Ferrari said. He added that the crane chosen—a Terex Demag AC 800, rented from Turin-based firm Calabrese—ensured an ample lifting capacity safety margin. The crane was used with HA boom configuration, 160t of counterweight, 25.5m of telescopic extension and a maximum radius of 16m.

The actual lift and installation of each bridge shoulder took four hours. During the movement of the crane—from when it lifted the sections, turned to move them into position and lowered them into their installation position—the torque moment generated by the boom and the load had to be compensated by water being pumped in or out of the barge’s ballast tanks. During the lift inclinometers installed on the barge were constantly monitored by the crew, in contact with the crane operator, to ensure that the work was carried out with the barge perfectly level.

When the first section was lifted, its SPMT moved away from the crane. The movement acted as a counterweight and compensated for the movement of the crane and its load. This slightly accelerated the lift.

It took another two and a half hours to remove the slings and five and a half hours to move the barge and moor it in position for the second section.

Ferrari said: “The most interesting aspect of the actual lift was the great precision required to coordinate the work of a stabilized telescopic crane mounted on a barge – much more complicated than a lift using a pontoon or barge with its own on-board crane – with the added difficulty of the very limited space and manoeuvring possibilities in such a delicate situation.”

The centre section

The second stage of the bridge assembly, also to be handled by Fagioli, was the transport, lifting and installation of the single central span, 55.2m (180ft) long, 9.5m wide and weighing 270t, using hydraulic extending lifting jacks.

In early August, the barge Susanna loaded the 55m-long, 9.5m-wide, 270t centre span of the bridge, carried on a 20-axle SPMT.

Once the barge was in the centre of the canal, it was precision-placed with four ropes connecting barge deck winches to bollards on the canal banks. A support barge that drove anchor piles into the canal bed acted as a brake.

The SPMT rotated the bridge 90° from its length-wise transport position on the barge, and the barge was re-balanced, using its ballast tanks.

Before it had been loaded on to the SPMT, four Riggers Manufacturing EZ Lifter hydraulic extending gantries were mounted on the underside of the section. Each has a lift capacity of 600t at 4.7 metre extension and 300t at full 8.5 metre, three-stage extension. Each gantry leg is a self-contained unit with electric motor, hydraulic pump and control valves, reservoir and planetary gear drive transmission for propelling the leg. A forklift truck positioned a base frame under each lifter. The centre span was then raised above the level of the side sections, before being moved again and lowered into place, under the watchful eye of a cartographer and two surveyors equipped with theodolites. Once the sections are welded together, the deck will be finished and temporary supports under the two side sections will be removed, and the bridge opened.

Ferrari said: “The SPMT and the lifters were remote controlled via computer and, once it was in position, the centre span was just 1.5 mm off the theoretical position established during installation simulation.”


Bridge section installation Bridge section installation The AC 800 raises a bridge footing The AC 800 raises a bridge footing The crane boom passes under the Rialto bridge The crane boom passes under the Rialto bridge The barge, loaded with crane and bridge sections, sails through Venice The barge, loaded with crane and bridge sections, sails through Venice The crane lowers a bridge footing The crane lowers a bridge footing