Each day, countless people travel across bridges that Sarens has helped to install. Our expertise has helped clients raise bridges across the globe, where they connect countries, span rivers and valleys, and bring people together. These bridges support railway systems, link highways, and elevate pedestrian pathways above busy roads. Over the years, some have even become icons instantly recognizable for their record-setting length, captivating design, and innovative construction.

Connecting communities

Sarens began performing bridge installations in Europe in the early 1980s. We were one of the first heavy lifting companies to introduce innovative solutions like barges and SPMTs for rapid bridge movement and installation, helping clients complete projects and connect communities faster than ever before.

To this day, clients trust Sarens for their biggest and most difficult bridge construction projects. For the toughest and most technically-demanding bridge installations, there is almost no other company with the same experience and extensive record of success as Sarens.

Creating custom solutions

Because no bridge is exactly the same, Sarens collaborates with clients to develop custom solutions. When a job is bigger than a simple one- or two-crane installation, that’s where our technical solutions come in. There are so many factors unique to a particular bridge that even the same type of bridge with the same weight and same distance can be radically different from one project to the next, depending on whether it’s being built over water, above a railway, in a crowded city center, or a multitude of other conditions.

Sarens works closely with clients to move bridges from the construction location to the final abutments via a combination of jacking, skidding, and transport possibilities in the form of SPMTs, climbing systems, cranes, and marine equipment like barges, shear legs, and floating piers. Sarens also performs the major lifts required to assemble large bridges, such as lifting the arc from a bowstring.

We have experience installing almost any type of bridge, whether concrete or steel, with expertise spanning:

• Precast segmental installation, including span by span on a falsework or launching gantry, precast beam method, full-span precast method, and balanced cantilever with cranes, launching gantry, or lifting frames.
  In situ construction, including the form traveller method and incremental launching method.
  Stay cable bridge construction, excluding post tensioning and stays. 

When cranes cannot be used as the primary erection method, Sarens can deploy any combination of solutions for skidding, pulling and pushing, transversal shifting, lifting, jacking, tilting, and rotating around vertical or horizontal axes.

Over the years, one thing has proven to be true: the more difficult an installation, the more likely it is that Sarens will be involved. 

Innovating for new possibilities

Our most notable and memorable projects have challenged us to make leaps in innovation to accommodate unusual installation demands. 

One such standout project was the new Champlain Bridge in Montreal, Canada. For this unique installation, Sarens specially designed a Floating Foundation Installer (FFI) to install 38 bridge footings, each weighing 1.000 tonnes, on the St. Lawrence River. Sarens was called in for the project because no Canadian company could provide a similarly innovative solution: in this case the Sarens FFI, a catamaran capable of lifting, transporting, and installing foundations by its own means, was developed to operate in strong currents and lift and rotate 1.000-tonne parts a full 360 degrees.

Another notable project was the New Wear Crossing Bridge in Sunderland, UK. In this special scenario, Sarens deployed its twin barges, sea-faring barge, jacking system, and SPMTs to precisely transport a 1.700-tonne A-frame pylon from Belgium to the UK, where it could then be installed. The Sarens team manoeuvred the pylon along tight canals and below a series of low bridges, working with only about 30cm of margin on all sides, before loading it onto the sea-faring barge Louis for onward travel to the UK.

Evolving with and influencing the industry

As new materials and bridge construction methods continue pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, Sarens continues to innovate and respond to changing times. For instance, where concrete bridges were once a standard, today’s bridges feature materials like stainless or high-tensile strength steel, glass microfiber inside concrete, lighter and stronger concrete, and even wood for small spans. 

Today the use of steel, which is lighter than concrete, means bridges can be designed to achieve longer spans. At the same time, these bigger, taller bridges also need stronger solutions—and Sarens provides them. In fact, as much as advances in bridge-building have influenced heavy lifting, the reverse is also true: the new cranes and stronger installation equipment we have introduced to the market allow bridge designers to become more innovative and seek new limits.

Supporting clients at every step

Sarens is proud to continue doing the work that we do, creating new solutions, evolving with new technology, and bringing people from one point to the next in the most efficient and elegant way possible. Our decades-long installation record is almost unmatched by any other company as we continue to install several dozen new bridges per year. We plan to continue to inspire the world with what’s possible, one bridge at a time.

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