Dubai Road & Transport Authority (RTA) is client for the Infinity Bridge, a 12-lane, 295m-long bridge that crosses 15.5m above Dubai Creek and opened to traffic this week.
Six Construct project manager Nicolas Bruyninckx said: “We are extremely proud to have delivered the Infinity Bridge to the RTA, which I thank for its confidence. We are also very proud to have completed it on time despite the Covid-19 pandemic, for which I would like to congratulate all our teams and our partners and suppliers, as this required them to rethink the organisation of the work, always keeping construction excellence, our client's interest and safety as top priorities. The Infinity Bridge is a magnificent infrastructure that contributes to further embellishing the city of Dubai.”
The construction of the bridge deck was completed in just eight months, with the Covid-19 pandemic in the background. The team succeeded in improving the cycle to cast the bridge segments from 10 to less than six days on average.
Mammoet supported construction of the landmark structure. It teamed up with Aertssen Machinery Services team up to install key elements of the bridge. Forty steel segments of the infinity arch, weighing up to 130t, needed to be installed over the creek and above the bridge deck, which could not support a suitably sized crane. As a result, the segment installation could only be performed by cranes operating from the creek’s banks.
Crane service providers Mammoet and Aertssen Machinery Services (AMS) teamed up to install the segments, using two Demag lattice boom crawler cranes. Aertssen positioned its CC 3800 at the northern side of the creek and Mammoet set up its CC 8800-1 on the southern bank.
Mid-bridge segments required tandem lifts by the two cranes positioned on opposite banks of the creek and with a working radius of 140m.
The tandem lifts were performed with the CC 8800-1 handling the majority of the weight.
The entire operation was completed over a period of six months, with the last piece of the infinity arch installed in May.
“Working in partnership with Aertssen, we provided equipment with sufficient capacity and reach, along with specialist engineering to support the operation of the CC 8800-1 to maximize the overall utilisation and its capacity.” commented Somnath Bhattacharjee, crane operations manager for Mammoet’s UAE Branch. “Each lift required an extraordinary level of precision as the tolerances for joining the segments were a matter of millimetres. But when you have the right machines and a great team, all goes smoothly.”
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