Over the past few months I’ve written about the strength of the SDG brand and focused on structural and sliding bearings, writes Ciaran Donnelly. In this third and final piece for Engineers Ireland, I wanted to look particularly at bridge bearings.
‘Stronger together’
The SDG motto is ‘Stronger together’ and it is most relevant when talking about bridges. Bridges bring communities together; they allow lives and trade to flourish. Internal link bridges improve collaboration; they bring workspaces to life and build connections. The bonds that are created by bridges really do make the two sides stronger together.
Our involvement in bridge projects also ties in with our stronger together approach. We work closely with engineers and manufacturers to create bespoke solutions – bringing strength through partnership. At SDG, we’re problem solvers. We pride ourselves in marrying our skills with your expertise to help projects finish on time and on budget.
How do we do this? By understanding that every bridge design has unique characteristics and behaviours that need to be factored into the solution. With over 30 years’ experience in the field, we can add value when it comes to calculating loads, movement and rotation factors for your projects to ensure your solution is fully compliant with regulations.
Bridge bearings must comply with standards EN1337-1 and its associated parts – everything our manufacturing partners, Gumba GmbH, creates achieves this standard.
Gumba precision engineer everything in their manufacturing facility in Germany and all their bearings are CE Certified. I’ve been fortunate enough to visit their site and it was a pleasure to spend time with a company that is built by engineers and prides itself on the quality of their work.
Bridges across Ireland
When it comes to bridges, everything is feasible if you have the budget. Where we help is by adding experience at an early stage to scope the project around the budget.
In Belfast, we provided bearings into Belfast Harbour’s Victoria Terminal 2. Part of Ireland’s second largest port, Victoria Terminal 2 is a high traffic area and critical infrastructure for the island. We joined this project at the design stage, working with Doran Consulting right through to advising on installation of the Gumba Reinforced Elastomeric Bearings on the Linkspan Replacement Approach Bridge.
At the opposite end of Ireland, we’ve also been involved in the Dunkettle Interchange Upgrade Scheme in Cork, one of the biggest road projects in Ireland. We worked closely with John Sisks to create a solution.
With the interchange being at the intersection of three strategically important routes, the M8/N8 Dublin to Cork Road, the N25 Cork to Waterford Road and the N40 Southern Ring Road (through the Jack Lynch Tunnel), the quality of Gumba’s solution was essential to this project.
At present we are supplying Gumba Spherical Bearings acc. EN1337-7 on this project, a mixture of Fixed, Free and Guided solutions. Spherical Bearings are the most sophisticated of bridge bearings which allow for high loads and low vertical deflection. We have also supplied Gumba Elastomeric Bearings acc. EN1337-3 on another structure within this scheme.
Not every project we work on is a road bridge. In last month’s feature, I wrote about the link bridges installed at Microsoft’s HQ in Leopardstown and we’ve also been heavily involved in the Newcomen footbridge over the Royal Canal in Dublin.
The footbridge is a real community asset, enabling pedestrians and cyclists to travel from North Strand Road through to the Seville Place junction unobstructed. Our technical team worked closely with Jons Civil Engineering to spec and supply EN1337-5 compliant ‘Gumba Pot Bearings’ – the perfect solution for a bridge with high load transmission.
Ciaran Donnelly, technical manager
Road or rail, foot, link or bike, if you’re project involves a bridge, it’s likely we’ve worked on something similar before. Our technical team brings years of experience to bear on bridge projects, working collaboratively with you and the manufacturers to ensure a compliant solution.
www.SDG.ie
Ciaran Donnelly, technical manager: ciaran@wearesdg.com