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The Suspended Platform that does not weigh

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It has stood on the Santerno river for more than five hundred years and is a true masterpiece of civil engineering.
Whether man's genius or folly, the Alidosi Bridge in Castel del Rio (BO) has a humpback structure with a single arch 42 metres long and 19 metres high.
After numerous interventions over time, in 2011 its structure deserved a new restoration because it had been damaged again by the passage of time and atmospheric agents.
The most important problem to be solved, even before starting the restoration work, was to find a solution to the problem of the structure's load, since in the central part of the bridge it was not possible to set up any kind of fixed scaffolding because it would have compromised the structure's stability.
To solve this problem, our engineering department designed a modified suspended platform compared to the standard, as it is supported at the base by a locking system formed by two steel girders, fixed to the extrados of the bridge by mechanical dowels.
The steel girders served a second function, namely, as rails for sliding the platform along the bridge, which had a steep slope on both sides.
In order to overcome the problem of the bridge's inclination and to ensure that the platform structure remained upright, we built a tilting base.
The effects on the bridge, generated by the use of the platform, are fully comparable to those generated by vehicular traffic.
The effects on the bridge, generated by the use of the platform, are very similar to those generated by permitted vehicular traffic, with the advantage that the weight of the suspended platform added to the weight of the steel girders is distributed over a greater surface area than is normally concentrated in the wheels of a car. The design choice proved to be a winner and allowed the men involved in the restoration to move around comfortably and safely.

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