Historic Britannia Bridge Gets System Monitoring Update

Context

A fire in 1970 extensively damaged the bridge so that the tubes were not repairable. It was rebuilt, using the original piers, adding new arches to support two decks to create a road-and-rail bridge. Rebuilt in stages, the bridge reopened fully in 1980. Since the initial monitoring program was installed in 2011, there has been talk of expanding or constructing an additional bridge to accommodate increased road capacity.

In recent years cracks began to appear in the supporting beams of the Britannia Bridge in Wales, and a monitoring system was installed. It was time to upgrade the technology and DYWIDAG removed the old monitoring system to allow for the installation of FRP beams to support the existing structure. The installation of the beam was conducted by a third party contractor : AMCO, afterwards DYWIDAG upgraded the monitoring system.

Solution

Wales’ Britannia Bridge developed cracks in some of its supporting beams, so a system of GeoKon LVDTs and Monitron vibration units were installed via a Mobile Elevated Work Platform (MEWP) in 2014 to track movements and potential weaknesses.

Now, in 2022, the monitoring system needed to be updated. The bridge was reinforced with new fiberglass beams installed by AMCO and DYWIDAG took care of upgrading the monitoring system repurposing some of the older equipment. An IRATA trained rope access team was required to remove the old equipment. This allowed for quick reaction and response time by our highly skilled and experienced engineers rather than relying on outside contractors, a significant advantage over competitors.