Queen’s University Belfast has collaborated on a project with pre-cast concrete specialist Macrete Ireland to develop the world’s longest ‘flat-pack’ arch bridge. Based on the so-called Flexi-Arch system developed at the university, the bridge will be transported to site in ‘flat-pack’ form, then transform under gravity into
an arch.
The bridge is due to be installed at Waterlooville near Portsmouth, where it will provide a 53ft span over the Wallington River.
Comprising 17 sections of pre-cast concrete, each 1m wide and weighing 16 tonnes, the bridge will take less than a day to install using a crane and a lifting beam that was also designed and built in Northern Ireland. There are over 50 FlexiArch bridges now in use in the UK and Ireland.
Professor Adrian Long of Queen’s University, who patented the FlexiArch concept in 2004, said: “This is a real milestone, which has been reached as a result of the hard work, effective collaboration and combined expertise of the Queen’s and Macrete teams. We are delighted with this latest development and with how successful the FlexiArch system has become.”
The professor said that, if the alternative of a conventional arch had been used, it would have taken months to construct and would have been much more costly. “A FlexiArch bridge requires little maintenance and should last 300 years, compared to the projected life-span of up to 120 years for a conventional bridge.”