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Narrator: In ireland...
We're 200 feet off the river.
Narrator: ...An elite team of engineers
Is embarking on an epic endeavor.
We're all joined and connected by this desire to build bridges.
Narrator: They're attempting to build the biggest bridge
The country has ever seen.
Man: Slow. Slow!
Narrator: To complete this incredible
Half-mile river crossing in a mere 44 months...
Inching it millimeter by millimeter.
Narrator: ...The team must battle massive loads...
...Unpredictable weather, and precarious heights.
A project like this comes to you once in a lifetime.
Narrator: This incredible bridge ranks
In a league of ambitious new engineering wonders
That are bigger, faster, taller, and more advanced
Than anything ever constructed before.
This is the inside story of the extraordinary challenge
Of building these giants.
-- Captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com
Captions paid for by discovery communications
Southeastern ireland.
Small country roads connect the quaint villages
And farms that dot these green hills.
The landscape is a patchwork of spectacular valleys
And beautiful rivers.
♪
One of the largest, the mighty barrow river,
Flows for more than 120 miles to the sea.
The only way across for the residents who live
On either side of this river is the small o'hanrahan bridge
In the center of the harbor town of new ross.
Heavy traffic between the busy city of cork
And the growing town of wexford
Has to pass through this tight bottleneck,
And it's taking its toll on the town.
Now a team of engineers is attempting to divert the road
And build an extraordinary new bridge three miles downriver.
This new divided highway will remove traffic from the town
And soar over the barrow river, conquering its wide waters.
♪
Lucia blanco is one of the engineers
Designing this record-breaking megabridge.
This cutting-edge crossing will stretch more than 1/2 mile
Over the river to become the longest bridge in ireland.
♪
The rose fitzgerald kennedy bridge
Will stretch more than 1/2 mile across the valley.
In the middle of the river,
An enormous tower rises out of the water,
Soaring nearly 200 feet into the sky.
The towers support 34 bundles of steel cables
That hold up the enormous concrete roadway
More than 3,000 feet from one side to the other.
♪
This record-breaking bridge
Will not only be the longest bridge in ireland
But the longest bridge of its type in the entire world.
♪
Building this bridge won't be easy.
♪
The new bridge needs to be both very long
To span the huge width of the waterway
And very high to allow tall ships to pass underneath.
Building on this scale will be a huge challenge.
This super spanned structure
Will push the limits of bridge engineering.
♪
The team will begin on land,
Building 11 concrete towers on either side of the river,
But the base of the massive central tower
Must sit in more than 10 feet of fast-running water.
♪
So here, they must build an artificial island...
♪
...Then drive supporting foundation piles
Through the soft riverbed to the bedrock below.
With its foundation in place,
The bridge's enormous central tower rises up.
♪
Once the tower is complete, engineers build the roadway
With custom-made mobile concrete molds
And attach steel cables to support the road
As they move along.
Finally, with millimeter accuracy,
They meet in the middle to form one giant solid structure.
At least, that's the plan.
♪
In order to access the barrow bridge,
Workers first build a new highway
To route traffic around the town.
Work begins in 2016.
♪
Workers plow the new road through the rolling hills
Of the irish countryside down towards both riverbanks,
Where they hit their first major problem,
Building in the river.
To build this colossal crossing, the team will need to construct
A road support in the middle of the river,
A huge central pier rising out of the water,
But the low tide exposes hundreds of yards
Of very deep, very soft mud.
Engineers cannot build on top of this soft mud,
But the team has a radical solution to the problem.
They will build their own artificial solid ground
Out in the middle of the water.
♪
To build the bridge's central tower,
The team must first create a solid base
In the middle of the river,
But if they simply piled rock into the water,
It would sink into the mud and be washed away
By the river's strong tidal currents.
♪
Instead, they lay high-tech super strong fabrics
Called geotextiles in the riverbed.
Then they pile the rock, blasted from the riverbanks,
On top.
The geotextile works like a snowshoe,
Evenly distributing the weight of the rock on the unstable mud.
Additional layers on top hold the rock in place,
Preventing it from being washed away.
The end result is a stable artificial island
That will form a solid base
For the bridge's vital central tower.
It takes just three months to construct the artificial island.
This creates a huge square platform
On top of which the team can now build a massive concrete tower.
These act as the bridge's legs, supporting the roadway.
Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!
Narrator: Once the towers are in position,
The team must gear up to perform an aerial balancing act
And construct the record-breaking roadway
147 feet above the mighty river.
♪
Ah [bleep] they're stuck like -- look.
♪
♪
Narrator: In southeastern ireland,
An elite construction team
Is attempting to build a record-breaking megabridge
Across one of the country's biggest rivers.
After 23 months of work,
The bridge's central support pillar is in place.
Now the team is ready to begin the next phase,
Building the road deck,
But they'll have to do this part of the job in midair.
Mark whelan is part of the team
Responsible for extending the bridge over the river.
Ironworkers, carpenters, surveyors, and laborers
All work together in the shadow of a massive steel frame
Called the form traveler, a vast concrete mold
That shapes each new section of the road deck.
This is how it works.
First, the traveler's powerful hydraulics
Shift the whole mold forwards into thin air.
It now extends more than 20 feet beyond the edge of the bridge.
Underneath, enormous steel struts connect it to the tower,
Supporting its massive weight.
♪
When it's in position,
Workers fill the mold with concrete.
♪
Once the concrete is set,
The traveler moves forward again,
Supported by the super strong concrete section it just molded.
Four travelers move outward simultaneously
From each side of the two huge spans
And will eventually meet in the middle
To complete the road deck.
♪
The team gears up to move the central traveler
Out over the river, but it won't be easy.
They have to move it uphill.
It takes two teams working in tandem
To move the traveler uphill, one above deck and one below.
Mark is getting in position below deck.
With everybody in position,
The team starts the hydraulic arms.
The pistons push the 200-ton steel frame 2 feet at a time,
Inching it closer and closer to the edge.
At the same time, the team below uses brute force
To winch the form traveler forwards.
We're going uphill.
We're more steep now than we initially were back there.
So we're creeping up the hill now,
So there's more load on the back of the traveler.
Narrator: The steep incline makes winching out
The underside of the traveler by hand a physical challenge.
♪
♪ row, row, row, row ♪
♪
Narrator: Both teams have to move in perfect unison
To keep the traveler moving straight,
But very quickly, something gets jammed.
Look.
Narrator: The lever becomes almost impossible to move,
And the form traveler comes to a halt.
It's stuck against the bridge itself.
Whelan: At the moment here, this plywood is too tight
Against the existing concrete,
So it's wedging against the traveler.
So basically, what we need to do now
Is let this down about 2 to 3 centimeters,
And then that'll give play so the traveler can slide through.
So at the moment, it's wedged.
Narrator: The team races to loosen the supporting steel bars
And lower the form traveler away from the concrete bridge deck.
With the supporting bars loosened
And the traveler free from the concrete,
They try again.
Inching it millimeter by millimeter.
Narrator: But tension is rising
In both the traveler and the team.
Very hard work, today it is.
It's not normally like this.
Narrator: The team tries to haul the traveler further uphill.
Ah [bleep] they're stuck like -- look.
Narrator: But it gets stuck again.
With so many intricate moving parts,
It takes a while to identify the problem.
The shackle got caught in front of the beam,
So we couldn't move it forward.
So everything is good to go now.
So you guys moving really easy right now?
After an hour of fine-tuning, the form traveler finally comes
To a stop in the perfect position.
Whelan: We're finished now.
We got the beam in the correct location.
Narrator: Now mark and his team
Have to fill the traveling form work with concrete.
They must pump the concrete more than 150 feet up from the ground
And more than 100 feet to the end of the bridge.
It's no easy task.
♪
The team must lay the concrete from the inside out,
Ducking under low ceilings and squeezing into tight areas
In the dark interior of the bridge.
They need to fill the walls and base of the traveler
With concrete first to support the road deck.
They must spread it with millimeter precision...
...Or the bridge could end up off-balance.
♪
♪
Narrator: In southeastern ireland,
An international team of engineers
Is extending the concrete road deck
Of ireland's newest and longest bridge.
They must spread the fresh concrete
With millimeter precision.
If the concrete is uneven,
Not only could it create a bumpy ride for any vehicles,
But it could also lead to structural imbalances
In the bridge itself.
It takes more than 8 hours to lay this new 20-foot section
Of road deck.
The team finishes the pour just as the concrete starts to set.
Whelan: Yeah.
No problems, everything went well.
Everything went smooth.
I think it's the quickest one we've done yet.
We started pumping concrete about 6:15 a.M.
I think it's now 2:30.
Narrator: The sheer scale of this megastructure requires
More than 32,000 cubic yards of concrete,
And the unusual design of the bridge
Calls for a particularly strong mix.
Concrete dries quickly, so the bridge's engineers
Need to source all of the fresh wet concrete locally.
It's made here at the kilmacow concrete plant
Only 12 miles away.
95 newton is a particularly strong concrete.
The strengths of this ilk,
They don't come around very often.
Narrator: Expert concrete technician colin heffernan
Is responsible for ensuring the mix is perfect.
We combine different aggregates, which are cements,
Your admixtures, and your waters.
What you've got here is a 10 millstone,
So you combine that with sand, part of your fine aggregate,
And then also a coarser chip again, 14 millstone.
All of these different aggregates are combined together
To give you that cohesive mix
That will produce the strength required for the bridge.
Narrator: Enormous loading bins release the required amount
Of each aggregate onto a conveyor belt below.
The door opens.
The aggregate drops onto the weigh conveyor,
And that weighs the proportion of that aggregate in the mix.
Narrator: The conveyor belt itself weighs each ingredient
To ensure the mixture is perfect,
Then transports it to the mixer.
But the aggregates will now be transferred up
To a central mixer,
And there, they'll be mixed with the cements,
The water, and the chemical admixtures,
Following which the concrete will be discharged into a truck,
And then we're going to go over to the lab
And we're going to test the actual concrete mix.
Narrator: Colin takes a sample
From every load leaving the site.
He must ensure the concrete is strong enough
To use on the bridge.
In deep storage, he has sample cubes of the concrete mix
That have been curing for 4 weeks.
What we have here are c80/95 cubes.
They were manufactured 28 days ago,
And we're going to crush them today.
Narrator: Before the test,
Colin removes any small imperfections
And makes sure each cube has a consistent weight.
All concrete has a structural limit.
If you apply too much force, it will crack and explode.
This is a compression machine, which is used to assess
The compressive strength of the actual concrete cubes.
We need this cube to meet a target of 95 newtons.
Narrator: Colin starts up the machine,
Which slowly increases the pressure on the cube.
At the moment, you can see that the upper plate
Is compressing on the cube, exerting a force on it.
The force is building.
We'd expect that force to go to 1,050 or 1,100.
Narrator: Every second,
It approaches its target strength.
Eventually, cracks begin to appear
In the side of the cube until...
It explodes.
But colin is happy with the results.
114.2 newtons per millimeter squared --
It's far exceeded the target strength
And shows that the concrete is suitable for use
In the bridge itself.
Narrator: More than 4,000 trucks
Full of this super strength concrete
Are needed to complete the bridge.
It's thanks to these tests on every batch of concrete
That the build team has ultimate confidence
In the strength of their bridge.
♪
On-site, the team is now 39 months into the bridge build.
♪
They're making good progress, but as the roadways get longer,
There's a new problem.
They move.
It's marcos sanchez's job to ensure that each new section
Of the bridge is positioned correctly.
Building here is a delicate balancing act.
♪
Workers build the road deck out in both directions
From the central pier.
♪
Each complete section extends the road by 20 feet
But also adds hundreds of tons of weight.
♪
The extra weight of each new section pulls the road down
And lifts the opposite side just like a seesaw.
Too much weight on the wrong side will cause the bridge
To fall out of balance with disastrous consequences.
♪
The team has to coordinate work on each side of the deck,
Building at the same speed
So that neither side becomes too heavy.
♪
This remote solar-powered monitoring station
Keeps watch over the bridge at all times.
It measures every part of the bridge with millimeter accuracy
24 hours a day.
The equipment discovers that the latest road section
Drags one side of the bridge too low.
Marcos has to ensure the road decks will meet
Precisely in the middle,
Or all their hard work will have been for nothing.
♪
♪
Narrator: In ireland, an elite construction team
Is attempting to build the country's biggest bridge.
They're building two road decks out towards each other
In midair, but one side of the central deck
Is 2 feet lower than it should be.
Bridge designer marcos has a solution.
He uses a complex computer program to predict
How the bridge will react and move as they build each section.
He can then use the support cables to raise each section
Of the bridge back to where it should be.
Marcos is confident he can get the bridge back on track.
As the roadway grows longer and longer,
It needs even more support from above.
♪
Specialized engineers must install more than 300 miles
Of solid steel cables
To hold up the ends of the road deck.
♪
Today, the team is attempting to install the longest,
Heaviest, and highest cables yet.
♪
Thick bundles of steel cables link the road deck
To the bridge's central tower.
To build the cables, engineers first lift
A tough outer casing into position.
♪
Next, they individually thread hundreds of super strong cables
Through the casing.
Each cable passes through
A specially constructed steel saddle
And out the other side.
Engineers attach each cable to the underside of the road deck,
Then tension them from both sides at once,
Pulling them tighter and tighter.
Once fully tensioned, the cables form a rigid triangle
Which pulls the road deck inwards and supports its weight.
Workers need to install 34 of these cables
Across the whole bridge to lock the road deck into a solid block
Capable of reaching out across the enormous span.
♪
Hey!
Narrator: It's craig sneddon's job
To install the cables that hold the bridge up,
But first, he needs to build a vital plastic casing
To protect the cables.
Craig must construct a pipe nearly 450 feet in length
To hold the longest cables on the bridge so far.
He has to ensure every section
Is joined perfectly with no weak spots,
Or the super long flexible casing
Could bend too far and snap.
Craig's team must shave the pipe sections
Until they're perfectly flat
And will join together with no space or gaps.
A special vice lines up each pipe section
And peels off thin layers until they join together seamlessly,
But to stick them together permanently,
Craig needs to melt them.
After joining 12 sections together,
The pipe is ready for craig to lift it into position.
The team connects the end of the pipe to a crane,
Which needs to lift the heavy, flexible tube
To the top of the tower.
Keep it forward!
Narrator: With the crane securely attached,
The pipe lifts off the ground.
The team has to ensure that the delicate pipe
Doesn't hit anything on the way up.
As the new pipe is lifted clear of the others,
The flexible plastic begins to bend, which is a problem.
Craig and his team needs to straighten the pipe
So the steel cables can slide through without snagging.
They do this with a guide strand...
...A single steel cable running the length of the pipe.
As craig tightens the guide strand,
It lifts the pipe even further and straightens it out.
In no time at all, the pipe is in position,
But the team isn't finished yet.
They must run 125 steel cables through the middle
So that it can hold up the bridge.
The cables are delivered on huge 3-ton coils.
Each coil holds more than a mile of steel.
They load each steel cable into a cable-pushing machine.
This thrusts the cables at a constant rate
Up the whole length of the pipe through the saddle at the top
And far down to the other side of the bridge.
Once the cable pusher starts,
Craig has to pay close attention to the coil.
♪
The team on the ground pushes a cable up
To the top of the tower...
Stop. Stop.
Narrator: ...Where a worker must quickly catch it
And put it through the correct hole in the saddle.
The cable eventually reaches the far side, where it is caught
And fed through the same hole in another block.
Far below the road deck,
Another team works inside the bridge to tension the tables.
With the cables being fed through one by one,
The team inside the bridge have to tighten all of them...
We've got to be strong and physical to do this job.
Narrator: ...Until they take the full weight of the concrete.
♪
♪
Narrator: In southeastern ireland,
This fearless construction crew is balancing on the edge
Of ireland's largest bridge 150 feet above the barrow river,
But hidden inside the concrete road deck,
A specialized team is working hard to attach
The enormous steel cables that keep the road in place.
These cables, this is what's holding up the structure
Of the bridge, pretty much.
Narrator: It's david o'hara's job to ensure the steel cables
Are tight enough to hold up the bridge.
These thick cables up on the bridge there,
They affect the position.
My job is to go inside and stretch these cables.
Narrator: David has to venture deep inside
The belly of the bridge
To find the ends of the steel strands.
Today, he must secure the longest cable so far,
Which poses a huge challenge.
Well, at the moment, we're inside the bridge, okay?
That's pretty much where all the work has happened.
Everybody tends to think that that's just a road
That you drive over, but no.
Really, this is where all the action happens.
Narrator: Workers on the bridge deck above
Feed the cable strands through a metal tube
Down into the team inside the bridge.
Okay!
This is the anchor block where david will secure each strand
And pull it tight.
Right. Let's get it strapped down,
Pulling through just now and feeding through
For the cable that we're going to install at the moment.
As you can see, it's not simple,
But it is possible.
Yep, keep going!
Workers feed the cables down into the road deck
In a precise order
So david's team inside the bridge
Knows where the next cable will appear.
Well, it is pretty much like threading a needle
Because you put this up there.
You put the gauge strand up the designated hole,
And each hole has got a number.
Narrator: David uses a hydraulic jack to tighten each cable
As it comes through the anchor.
It almost looks like a bazooka.
Narrator: He puts the jack over the top of each cable
Right up to the anchor.
The jack then pulls the cable through inch by inch,
Locking it in place.
This here is your jack, right, and this is what's pulling
The force of these strands here, yeah?
Narrator: But they have to be precise or a cable could snap.
It's basically like an elastic band.
You're pulling, pulling, pulling,
And if you put too much force, it will pop,
So you only do it a certain percentage.
Narrator: It only takes david a few minutes
To fully stress each strand, but he has to do this 125 times.
With the new cable secure,
The team is able to build out even further over the water.
♪
It takes 41 months, but eventually,
The roads approach each other in the middle.
And this is where the final challenge begins.
Harvey, drop it down a bit.
We'll be better with -- drop it down a bit there.
Every moment now is a big moment.
Narrator: It's up to declan roche and his team
To finally join the two ends of the bridge together.
Today is a very big day for us here on the project,
And today is the day when we bring the locking beams,
Which are going to fix the two bridge decks together to size.
We're going to install them.
Narrator: After more than three years of building,
The road decks are almost touching,
But they've run into a problem.
You see the central point is beyond the traveler bars,
So that won't work.
One road is lower than the other.
We clearly cannot have a step or a speed ramp
In the middle of the bridge.
That wouldn't work at all, so no,
It is very important that we bring these together.
Narrator: The team has to ensure
The roads are the exact same height,
And they have a genius plan to bring each side together.
Roche: We've had a lot of people wondering
How are we going to bring the bridge decks together?
♪
Narrator: With the bridge nearing completion,
One side of the roadway is nearly 2 feet higher
Than the other.
To bridge this gap, first, engineers securely
Attach colossal steel beams to the higher side.
Next, they use long bolts to connect the beams
To the lower side of the bridge.
Then small but mighty hydraulic jacks
Will slowly pull the lower road deck up to meet the steel beams,
Raising the whole concrete deck to the same level.
Finally, they move the remaining traveler out across the gap,
Connecting it to the other side for one last concrete cast.
Once they finish both gaps, the bridge will be complete.
Roche: I think the first thing I thought of is,
"that's a really simple, clever idea,"
You know, because the best ideas sometimes are the simplest.
Narrator: The first job is to put the locking beams
In the correct position.
The super strong steel beams are more than 36 feet long
And weigh more than 13 tons each.
The team has brought in this special crane to lift them.
The beam itself, as you can see, the beam is quite big.
It's over 1.2 meters in height.
Narrator: There's just one problem.
To lift the enormous locking beams,
The crane needs to extend long stabilizing legs,
But there's not enough room.
We're up in the deck of the bridge,
And space is very constrained.
The bridge itself is relatively narrow.
It's four lanes in total, two lanes on either side,
But because we've got the cables here in the middle,
It restricts the space we have for the crane.
The team scrambles to move heavy equipment and machinery
Around the deck to clear a path for the crane.
Yeah. It should be okay.
3 meters to the middle of the pad.
It was a meter back, but here, it should be okay.
It should have this much to spare.
Narrator: It's a tight squeeze, but the crew has cleared
Just enough space to extend and stabilize the crane.
It's the middle part.
Okay.
With the crane finally in position,
They're ready to lift the locking beams into place.
Roche: We have to be very precise on how we place these.
The holes in the deck and the holes in the beam,
They got to line up really precisely.
There's not a lot of room for error.
Narrator: Workers on either side of the divide use ropes
To guide the beam and gently lower it over the span.
All right. Let's go!
It's going up this way.
Evan!
I'm going to pull her around a bit now, yeah?
Harvey, drop it down a bit.
We'll be better with -- drop it down a bit there.
Narrator: They drop the locking beams onto special bases
And carefully line up the holes.
As with any of these operations,
There's always a little adjustment
To get the millimeter accuracy that we need.
Narrator: The holes in the base go right through
To the underside of the road deck.
Declan heads to the other side of the bridge
To inspect the difference in height.
Roche: So we've come over to the other side of the river,
And we're going to have a look here
And see where we've put the beam
In this morning from the other side,
And we can have a look at the gap
That's between the deck on the other side of the beam.
Narrator: The locking beam shows the difference in height
Between the road decks.
One side is almost 2 feet higher than the other.
Can I come around behind you?
Sorry. Thanks very much.
The team will need to push the locking beams to the limit
To bring the roads level.
Wade: They've got very restricted access,
Very intricate maneuvers here.
♪
♪
Narrator: In southeastern ireland,
An international team of experts
Is about to connect two sides of a record-breaking bridge,
But first, they need to make sure they're the same height.
Well, you can see, we've got a distance of 400 millimeters
Or just under 400 millimeters.
Narrator: The team need to lift the entire central concrete road
More than 1 1/2 feet
In order to bring it level with the other side.
Even though it's concrete and steel, it still flexes,
And it still moves.
It's a very long cantilever over there,
And that is the reason why we need these heavy bridge beams
Because we need to lock the two decks together.
Narrator: The crew will return first thing in the morning
To begin the final colossal lift.
♪
The team arrives before sunrise.
♪
Engineer mike wade takes over from declan
To inspect the leveling of the road decks.
It's early in the morning,
And it's nice that it's actually in the summer.
These jobs in the winter are not so pleasant.
Narrator: The early start not only gives the team more time
To finish the operation,
But the cool air and mist actually make the job easier.
We're starting at 5:00 this morning
Because the temperature of the deck is cool and constant.
During the day, the deck will warm up.
The cantilever actually deflects further,
And so we're trying to get it locked into position
Before the sun comes up and warms the deck.
♪
Narrator: To do this, they will use powerful hydraulic jacks
To lift the lower deck to the correct height.
Here, we're having the jacks delivered to be
Installed onto the threaded bars so that they can be tensioned,
So these guys are just lifting it up.
And then they'll lift it over the top of the bar.
Narrator: The hydraulic jacks are too heavy to move by hand,
So they need to be lifted into position with cranes.
Can I come around behind you?
Sorry. Thanks very much.
♪
But the huge steel frame of the form traveler is in the way.
So you can see the issues with getting the jacks
Installed onto the bars.
They've got very restricted access here
With the frame of the form traveler,
So it all has very, very intricate maneuvers here.
Narrator: The team struggles to find a way through the frame
Of the form traveler.
With a little trial and error, they manage to thread the jack
Through a tight gap down onto the first bar.
The first line of bars to be tensioned
Is this first line here,
So he's just maneuvering the first jack into position now
Over this first bar.
But he's there now.
Yeah.
Nice job, so that's the first jack into position.
Narrator: This is the critical moment everyone has been
Working towards for more than three years.
The jacks apply hundreds of tons of pressure to the steel bar
To raise the concrete road below.
And now this deck is coming up and closing this gap.
Narrator: The powerful jack lifts the road deck
Millimeter by millimeter.
This gap is now probably about 40 millimeters,
So the deck is still coming up.
Narrator: Workers both above and below the concrete road
Tighten nuts to lock the bridge deck higher and higher.
The gap is getting a lot closer now,
So we're getting there.
We're still moving.
Narrator: After only seven minutes,
The jack has lifted the entire road
By more than 15 inches.
The decks are now locked and perfectly level.
Wade: Really, really pleased to see it all come together.
It's very, very satisfying for everybody.
Narrator: With the roads now joined together,
The team has finally bridged the barrow river.
[ cheers and applause ]
For the first time,
It's possible to cross the bridge.
This record-breaking crossing will provide a new route
Across the barrow river for more than 12,000 vehicles every day.
We'll be open to traffic very soon.
I'm so proud and so pleased to have been part of this team
That's been involved, loved it.
Narrator: It's taken more than three years,
But the barrow bridge is now finally complete.
It will transform the southeast of ireland
And the lives of everyone in the town of new ross.
Bridges link people and link communities,
And so actually,
You leave more than the legacy of a physical structure.
You leave united community.
♪
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