Foundation piles Achterweg viaduct skillfully 'shortened'

To make room for the widening of the N206 ir. G. Tjalmaweg, the existing Achterweg viaduct was demolished. Van der Jagt Groep was called in to skillfully shorten the over-length of the rather substantial concrete foundation piles of the former bicycle and pedestrian bridge. No shortage of creativity from the specialized drilling, sawing and demolition company, which for this job used a wall sawing machine on rails for a perfect end result.

Boskalis is a regular and reputable client for us, begins André Rikkers, business manager at Van der Jagt Group. "We are regularly deployed for all kinds of drilling, sawing and demolition work. As such, we were also approached for the N206 ir. G. Tjalmaweg project to provide a quote for shortening the foundation piles of the demolished viaduct. Demolishing the piles was not an option in this case, because movement could break the applied waterproofing layer. Therefore, the choice was made to saw off the sometimes quite substantial over-length to 2.70 meters."

Creative solutions

Van der Jagt Group has a huge "machine park. "For every challenge we come up with a creative solution," Rikkers emphasizes. "The poles of square 38 centimeters were too large to saw through by hand. Even a hand sawing machine proved unsuitable for this job. Moreover, you couldn't get out of the pit with moving equipment either. So more industrial equipment was needed. Given the considerable over-length of the concrete piles, we did use a crane on the Tjalmaweg. Two other colleagues then set to work in the pit with the tripod, rails and wall saw. In this way, we neatly sawed off all 52 poles one after the other at height in the space of four days. What remained were only the heads just sticking out of the soil. Those heads were then covered with a layer of sand, after which Boskalis could proceed with the construction of the sunken location of the new N206." 

"With our various entities, we are involved in the most diverse infrastructure projects," says Rikkers. "We therefore like to profile ourselves as a reliable and collaborative specialist with a lot of in-house knowledge that we have accumulated over 65 years. We have been around for a very long time and are a renowned name in the civil sector. When things get difficult or special, clients always know where to find us. In addition, we are known for our flexibility. Calling today and starting tomorrow is really not impossible."