Big Lift

mageba’s installation team has demonstrated its abilities in the recent lifting and renovation of a century-old bridge over the Rhône River in Valais, Switzerland.

After over a century of service, an old steel girder bridge in the municipality of Riddes in the Swiss Alps required to be substantially renovated in 2017. Its deck also required to be lifted by 2 ft (60 cm), above the level of a 100-year flood in the river beneath and at the same time increasing the clearance for river traffic. mageba played an important role in the renovation project, in several ways.

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As usual, our involvement included the design and fabrication of various key components, which our site technician team also installed – RESTON®LINEAR bearings to support the deck, and both TENSA®CRETE RE single gap and TENSA®POLYFLEX ADVANCED PU flexible plug expansion joints. But the site team, with its wealth of experience in lifting bridges gained from bearing replacement projects of all kinds, also arranged and managed the deck lifting operation. Of course, the height through which the deck had to be lifted was much higher in this case than is normally required for a bearing replacement project, presenting additional challenges, but the lifting was successfully completed over a period of 1.5 days.

With its new high-quality bearings and expansion joints, and its newly raised level above the river, this old bridge is now well equipped to serve the community for another century and into the future.

Movie

Watch a short video showing the project execution.