The rehabilitation of the bridge over the Huesna Valley streambed, which is located in the municipality of Villanueva del Río y Minas, and houses the railway line from Mérida to Los Rosales, has relied on scaffolding solutions from ULMA Construction.
The objective was to repair the bridge, known by locals as “The Iron Bridge”. Back in the day the entire bridge structure was made from iron, and it was later that the concrete arches were built. The 222-metre-long bridge rests on eight arch vaults of different types.
In 2010, they determined the necessity of carrying out a series of actions on the bridge. The reason was a problem they detected in the drainage system. This was affecting the durability of the structure. To solve the issue, they planned a repair project which contemplated the rehabilitation of the entire bridge. Among the actions carried out in its restoration, the waterproofing of the upper part of the bridge and the correct insertion of the drainage system stand out.
3D Technology
The project required an appropriate technical solution, a lot of material and adapting to the orography, and to offer the best customer service, the technical study was carried out with 3D technology in Revit. “3D technology offers a study that is much closer to reality and makes a much more accurate forecast of the assembly”, specified Sebastián Salvatierra, the Assembly Coordinator at ULMA.
For example, the terrain, as well as the stream of the river, required support at different levels. For this reason, they placed BRIO scaffolding at the base of the bridge piers. They also used cantilever solutions suspended by ties to the arches and sides of the bridge deck. In addition, they mounted a scaffolding structure to protect an electrical line that crosses the bridge below one of the arches. In short, it was a very demanding project which required more than fourteen thousand square meters of material and various solutions.
“We decided that ULMA was one of the companies that could provide us with that material. It is one of the few companies in the market that could do it, both because of the volume and the assembly service”, commented Mar Baster, Head of Production at LIC.
If you want to know more, check out this video of the project.