Betar

Bridge over Licungo River in N324 road

• Location: Zambezia Province, Mozambique
• Solution: Bridges, Infrastructure and Transport
• Type: Road bridges, Management and construction inspection, Roadways and railways, Management and construction inspection
• Promoter: ANE Administração Nacional de Estradas de Moçambique
• Client: ANE Administração Nacional de Estradas de Moçambique
• Scope: Design project validation of Roads&Bridges; Onsite resident supervision of works
• Area: Bridges' sum: 7068 m2 (930m x 7.6m); Access road: 8193 m2 (1078m x 7.6m) (1x2)
• Project: 2020
• Construction: 2020/2021
• Contractor: China Road and Bridge Corporation - CRBC
• Dimension: 2 bridges: 108m and 822.39m long (12m span); Access road: 1.08km
• Ver no Google Maps

The project aims to re-establish a reliable road connection between the two banks of the Licungo River along the N324 road between Namacurra and Maganja da Costa districts. The river crossing is 2.0km long and is located 2.5 km to the east of the N1 road.

During 2015's floods the two existing bridges were partialy destroyed as well as the road embankments and therefore the road traffic was disrupted. The local settlements were left without a safe and reliable road connection to cross this section of the river. People started using rudimentary and unsafe canoes.

Amid this environment, the Government decided for the construction of a new road infrastructure along a total length of 2.0km. This infrastructure is composed by two steel bridges (whose lengths are 108m and 822.39m, respectively) and their access road. The structures' deck is a Bailey Truss type beam solution and is 7.6m wide. The platform holds two traffic lanes and two walkways at each side. Both bridges are interconnected by a road embankment also 7.6m wide that was designed to act as a fuse in case of abnormal floods.

The bridges have regular spans of 12m long that reduce to 6m next to the expansion joints. The steel trusses support the pre-cast reinforced concrete slabs and for their part are supported by Pier-Piles made of steel circular hollow sections (diameter 0.63m) that were partially filled by concrete.

As mentioned above, the scope of works also included the execution of a new access road composed by fill embankments surfaced with double-seal pavement. Its partial lengths are 315.53m on the western side, 229.31m between the bridges and 533m to the east.

The abutments were protected against scour with a conical mortar masonry. Along the intervention scene the platform holds vertical and horizontal signs and guardrails wherever slopes are higher than 2m.

BETAR performed the role of on-site supervisor, supporting the Employer on the Design Check and Validation and also contributed for the solution definition and optimization (the design was performed by the Contractor since this was a FIDIC Turnkey framework contract – design and built).