Nine modular bridges for Left Bank - Antwerp Ring Road

Good graces are being made abroad with Dutch modular bridge systems. The Dutch company Retro Bridge BV is putting  as many as nine temporary bridges for the reconstruction of the Antwerp Ring Road (R1), to keep traffic flowing during the major works. A new guardrail configuration was even specially developed for this project with crash test certification and CE marking.

The temporary bridges will be located in the cloverleaf on the east side of Antwerp on the Left Bank, says Han Kastermans of Retro Bridge. "This will allow the Belgian contractor's consortium to renovate and adapt the cloverleaf in such a way that it can later connect to the new Oosterweel connection, a tunnel under Antwerp. The Oosterweel connection forms the final piece of the Antwerp Ring Road and completes the R1."

Nine bridge systems
Retro Bridge has been awarded the contract to install nine modular bridge systems spread over about a year and a half starting in mid-May. "The first bridge we will install in May involves a 700-meter-long pedestrian bridge," Kastermans explained. "The next bridge we will place during the construction vacation, a Retro Heavy Bridge (RHB) type modular system in a length of 40.5 meters and 7.5 meters wide. Over the next year and a half, we will install two more RHB systems, one similar to the one in the upcoming construction holiday and a bridge with a length of 75 meters by 7.5 meters wide. In addition, we will install two Retro Beam Bridge type bridges, each 7.5 meters wide and varying in lengths of 19 and 10.5 meters, and three Retro Light Bridge type bridges, again 7.5 meters wide and in lengths of 34.5 meters (2 units) and 27 meters." 

Crash test certificate
Especially for this project, Retro Bridge developed a new type of guardrail for application in highways. Kastermans: "For us it was the first time we couldn't cope with our standard guardrail. Reason enough to develop a new guardrail in accordance with capacity code H2W2. The new guardrail configuration also comes with a crash test certificate and CE marking. All temporary bridges in this project will be equipped with this type of guardrail, with the exception of the pedestrian bridge." Retro Bridge's modular bridge systems will remain in service until 2023. "After that, we will dismantle them and they will go to another project. By the way, we offered six of the nine bridges to the contractor consortium through a buy-back construction. That is more advantageous for the customer."

Retro Bridge rents its modular bridge systems throughout Europe. "We can almost always meet the set criteria and demand specification with standard modules. The elements comply with the Eurocode load models and makes that we do not have to re-size each time. A win-win," Kastermans concludes.