Where is this water bridge situated?

The Sart canal bridge is the world's heaviest incrementally launched bridge, with the moving mass reaching 65 tonnes at the end of the sliding process.

At the same time, the huge longitudinal inertia of the deck combined with severe aesthetic constraints led the engineering team to devise technical solutions that are not standard for launched bridges.

LOCATION

Strepy-Bracquegnies, Hainaut, Belgium.

The bridge construction started 01-1999 and finished 11-2003.

Crossing an almost 500 m (0.31miles) valley at a height of between 12 and 20 metres with a waterway of 33 metres( 36.1yards) working width and 4.15 metres(4.5 yards) draught. To avoid a crushing impression, it spaced the columns 36 metres apart, an unusually wide span for this type of work that needs to support more than 4 tons per square metre. The result is a project consisting of two inclined side walls comprising variable curvatures with a total height of 7.1 metres. 498 metres long, these are cast in a single piece to reduce the number of expansion and sealing joints. On these longitudinal carrying elements are then set, every 4.5 m, 27 metre long fishbelly cross-members, which support the canal floor slab. In this way the waterway has a total width of 46 metres at its base and a height of 7.1 metres, resting on two rows of 14 columns each - one row per side wall – set 36 metres apart longitudinally and 33.4 metres cross-wise.