Bridges

The construction, transportation, and assembly of large metal structures are unique projects for the Shipbuilding Industry Split, which constantly invests in equipment and machinery to meet the client's requirements in terms of quality, possibilities, competitive offers, and delivery deadlines.

On the part of the access road to the Pelješki bridge, one of the most demanding and valuable infrastructure facilities in modern Croatia, Brodosplit installed the steel structure of the Ston bridge in just a month and a half and ensured the high-quality implementation of the demanding projects of the Ston bridge and the Prapratno viaduct.

At the end of August 2021, the steel structure of the Prapratno viaduct, 212 meters long and weighing approximately 600 tons, was completed. From the shipyard, the viaduct segments were delivered by ferry to the port of Prapratno and transported from the dock to the installation site by a self-propelled modular transporter (SPMT) with a large capacity. The largest segment is almost 50 meters long and weighs 126 tons. Brodosplit made and painted the construction from 5 segments in its workshops, transported them to the construction site, and joined the segments together by welding. After that, they were pushed with hydraulic cylinders and a high-value threaded rod from east to west into the final position.

At the end of March 2022, the last segment of the Ston Bridge was lifted and assembled. It was lifted by two mega cranes simultaneously in pairs due to the configuration of the terrain. The bridge is a total of 485 meters long and 40 meters high. It connects two tunnels, Polakovica and Supava, above the Gulf of Ston. The bridge has five pillars and two abutments. The entire structure consists of six segments that were built in large Brodosplit-conditioned halls and transported by barge by sea. This means that the quality and durability of such a construction are significantly higher than when made from several smaller segments. The largest segment of the Ston Bridge is 93.8 meters long (like a football field) and weighs 323.30 tons. The installation was carried out with the help of a Manitowoc mega crane with a capacity of 750 tons, which is the largest load that a Croatian company has handled independently.

We are pioneers in this part of Europe, perhaps even at the world level, for doing 400-ton construction in a closed space under controlled conditions, which we then place in one piece in the project. With one crane, we can place up to 750 tons, and with two cranes, even up to a thousand tons.

With the project of the Ston Bridge and the Prapratno viaduct, Brodosplit continues its positioning in the offshore-onshore market niche and has become an increasingly serious manufacturer of demanding steel structures.

Reference list:

• Bridge Drava: construction of segments of the main girder of the bridge, the so-called central box, with a length of 400 meters (2014)
• Bridge Čiovo: construction, transport, and assembly of the steel structure of the bridge Trogir-Čiovo (2018)
• Viaduct Prapratno: construction, transport, and assembly of the steel part of the upper structure of the Prapratno viaduct (2021)
• Ston Bridge: construction, transport, and assembly of the steel structure of the Ston Bridge (2022)