High Speed 2 and East West Rail are sharing knowledge to help develop modular bridges in a unique collaboration. A kit of parts approach that enables greater efficiency in bridge design and construction is taking the industry by storm.
Laing O’Rourke is using its pioneering design for manufacture and assembly (DfMA) strategy to make a range of bridge elements for major projects at its Centre of Excellence for Modern Construction in Nottinghamshire. Interchangeable components are being manufactured, giving the flexibility to assemble them in different ways depending on the demands of a project.
Kits of parts
Laing O’Rourke civil engineering leader Phil Robinson explains: “With the kit of parts, we can put components together in any way we see fit to create the geometry we want.” A key output of the Nottinghamshire factory are precast modular blocks which have been used to form bridge abutments for High Speed 2 (HS2) and East West Rail (EWR).
It is an approach that enabled the rapid installation of a 45m long HS2 bridge over the A446 in Solihull in 2020. A total of 80 precast concrete modular abutment blocks were made at the factory, and structural engineer Cleveland Bridge manufactured and supplied 220t of steel girders for the bridge.