Friday, March 13, 2015

New experiments will save Sundsvall Bridge from bacterial attack – Swedish Radio

The resurrection has been great after news that an iron-eating bacteria are aggressive on the eight brofundamenten to Sundsvall Bridge standing in Sundsvallsfjärden. Now, nine additional steel beams get different treatment to find the solution.

Magnus Borgström is Swedish Transport Administration’s project manager for Sundsvall Bridge. He has extensive experience in bridge construction and was project manager for both the High Coast Bridge and the western pylon carrying the Öresund Bridge. But instead of fully pounce on new duties, he may now spend the coming years to decontaminate Sundsvall Bridge from the iron-eating bacteria.

– Surprises are not funny. But we do not sit and cry. The setting is that we’re going to solve, he says.

The news of the bacterium Gallionella has led many to call and e-mail us at P4 Västernorrland and we thank for – please continue to tell us.

One of the questions is whether the Swedish Transport Administration still should not have known about the possibility of bacteria. Especially as the bridge structure with supporting steel boxes in the water is brand new and untested Surely all the conditions have been analyzed?

In a search on for example the Swedish Radio Science pages are articles about bacteria that eat oil, nickel, arsenic and even iron . So unexpected and still not was that the bacterium could be in Sundsvallsfjärden?

– For us, it was this very unusual and unexpected. We usually never have to risk with iron-eating bacteria in our calculations. But there, we might have in the future.

Still, the builders of the Joint Venture Sundsvall Bridge – what in the latter part became German companies Max Bögl (responsible for construction of the bridge above the water) and Strabag Wasserbau (responsible for construction underwater), on its own initiative sat out nine steel beams, “spontplankor” in the water. And it was lucky. For it is on them Swedish Transport Administration are now forced to experiment to find the right method to get rid of the bacteria that is now gnaw through the design – which gets rusty at a fast pace.

– Now we avail ourselves of these spontplankorna differently. One should we paint another, we put an anode on one we clean and so on. Then we dive in a few months to see what happened, says Borgström.

Have Transport Administration did something wrong when I missed the iron-eating bacteria?

– No, I do not think we have done, says Magnus Borgström.

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