Skip to main content

Brazilian bridge to the beach

The State of Pernambuco in north-eastern Brazil has some of the country's most beautiful beaches, and on the peninsula of Cabo de Santo Agostinho a luxury resort has sprung up with apartments (condominios) and hotels for international tourists. To give the resort a convenient, fast link to the coastal highway, the Via Parque consortium is building a bridge over the Jaboatão River, which separates the peninsula from the mainland.
March 1, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
An impression of how the bridge will look
The State of Pernambuco in north-eastern Brazil has some of the country's most beautiful beaches, and on the peninsula of Cabo de Santo Agostinho a luxury resort has sprung up with apartments (condominios) and hotels for international tourists.

To give the resort a convenient, fast link to the coastal highway, the Via Parque consortium is building a bridge over the Jaboatão River, which separates the peninsula from the mainland.

The 320m long Ponte do Paiva across the river has a clear span of 290m, and is part of a new road system that will cut the journey from the airport to the peninsula from 48km to 14km. It will have two traffic lanes and a pedestrian and cycle lane.

The reinforced concrete box girder is being constructed using the cantilever method, working outward from the two pier heads and back-stayed in every casting section. Via Parque opted for 203 Doka Brasil to supply the formwork, and it planned and supplied a custom formwork solution that was optimally tailored to the specific requirements.

The four cantilevered forming carriages were fitted with a total of 1,000m² of large-area formwork Top 50. The formwork solution called for particular flexibility in the seventh casting section, which at 5m in length is twice as long as a typical section. Using stacking plates and 1.8m long formwork beams, it was possible to lengthen the formwork to the desired dimensions swiftly and safely.

A Doka field service technician coordinated the job of erecting the formwork solution correctly, and was on hand to assist the site team with advice and practical help throughout the start-up phase.

Although the crane had not been erected, forming operations on the foundations of the pier heads had to be started, and Doka Brasil supplied the site with the lightweight, rugged framed formwork Frami. Its low weight means that it can be shifted by hand.

"Even without crane assistance, some very good forming times were achieved with it on the site. Thanks to the logically coordinated panel formats, the crew was able to form the foundations with a minimum of prior planning," said Doka.

The site crew also used Frami on the pier-head itself.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Work starts on the Jinan-Qingdao Expressway in the Shandong province
    January 18, 2016
    In China, construction has started on the US$4.55 billion renovation and expansion of the Jinan-Qingdao Expressway in the coastal province of Shandong.
  • Canadian air
    February 8, 2012
    Compressors from Atlas Copco are proving highly useful in highly diverse applications, on a bridge project and a quarry in Canada. Water ingress over 30 years has damaged a road bridge in Quebec City, Canada, deteriorating the concrete and breaking down the rubber expansion joints at both ends of the 150m long structure. City highway authority, Transportes Quebec, awarded local contracting company Inter-Structures the contract to replace the deteriorated concrete and fit new membrane seals. The bridge, clos
  • Key Heathrow Airport link road undergoes repair
    October 1, 2014
    Hounslow Highways, working together with other Eurovia UK divisions including Surfacing, Contracting, Specialist Treatments and Euromark, has completed road reconstruction works on Stanwell Road West - one of the London Borough of Hounslow’s main link roads to Heathrow Airport. A large number of heavy goods vehicles and buses using the 80km/h dual carriageway results in significant loading on the road. Initial plans were to give Stanwell Road West complete reconstruction from the foundation level upwards
  • CEMEX in the Sinai
    October 4, 2018
    CEMEX is supplying over 500,000m3 of concrete and approximately 760,000tonnes of cement for major infrastructure projects related to the main canal in Egypt, the Suez Canal. These projects involve the construction of tunnels to connect Egypt’s mainland to the Sinai Peninsula and the development of a commercial seaport. Through a joint venture with Orascom Construction and The Arab Contractors, CEMEX is supplying 350,000m3 of concrete and 160,000tonnes of cement for the construction of two tunnels that ext