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Four abutments

The Enerpac Synchronous Lift System is a combination of digital control, switching and monitoring. Thanks to specific software, lifting (and lowering) is extremely accurate; the lift system can lift even the heaviest loads with a controlled accuracy of 1mm.

Only four abutments with BLS Stage-Lift double-acting cylinders (one under each corner of the bridge) were needed to lift up the special massive bridge. The BLS cylinders are intended for the "Lift and Crib" system and have integrated supports to make it easier to position underlying padding materials.

The four lift cylinders, with a total capacity of 1000 tonnes, were placed on hardwood outer cribbing blocks, which were stacked diagonally layer for layer. A new layer of outer cribbing blocks was put down after around each 10cm of lifting. In this way, the bridge was lifted around 50 centimetres per hour and in the end, the whole construction rested on four "cribbing block towers", each approx. four metres high.

Each cylinder was connected to its own hydraulic pump unit, which was controlled by computer using sensors placed right next to the lift cylinders.

The computer program controlled the cylinder movements, independently of the measurements, by switching the hydraulic directional control valves.

During this control, short impulses are sent to the valves in fractions of a second, so that individual cylinder movements are kept much smaller than is possible using manual control.

Not only does the Wagenborg Nedlift system save a considerable amount of time compared to manual lifting, but it also has a very essential advantage: thanks to the synchronous and therefore perfectly balanced lifting, virtually no internal stresses arise within the load. Michel de Jong: "We chose Enerpac because it is a company that operates internationally, but more importantly because of the accuracy of its system. The Synchronous Lift System allows us to perfectly manage and monitor the whole operation. And the data saved can be considered afterwards, together with the customer, to evaluate how things went. And with this project, everything went as we wanted it to."

Wooden bridge facts and figures

The Akkerwinde bridge is made so unique by the fact that the wooden construction is able to support the steel deck. Furthermore, traffic from the highest traffic class (60 tonnes) can drive over it. A list of wooden bridge facts:

Length: 32 metres

Width: 12 metres

Height: 16 metres (not including the substructure)

Total weight of the wooden superstructure and steel substructure: 360.000 kilo

Weight of drive bolts and link-up bars: 9000 kilo

Quantity of wood: 690 cubic metres

Type of wood: Accoya^®

Accoya^® wood

Accoya^® is a modified type of wood through and through. In order to guarantee a long lifespan, the wood is preserved following a new procedure: acetylation. Acetylation is the process of modifying wood using acetic anhydride. The procedure changes the cell structure, meaning the wood's properties are comparable with or even better than those of tropical hardwood. The Titan Wood factory in Arnhem, where this new method of preservation is carried out, has only been in production since January 2008. This modification has two important advantages: When sawing or profiling Accoya^® wood, wooden surfaces that have not undergone acetylation can never be exposed. This means it is not necessary to protect such surfaces with environmentally unfriendly substances, as is necessary for the "envelope treatments".