Sarens Assisting Eiffage with the Construction of the Robert Poujade Footbridge Spanning the Garonne River

The Robert Poujade Rapas footbridge, also known as the Rapas footbridge, in Toulouse has been under construction since July 2022. Despite some delays, the bridge was completed this summer and officially inaugurated by the city council, Toulouse Métropole, on June 22nd.

From the Left Bank, the asymmetrical cable-stayed “Rapas” footbridge now spans the Garonne River with a main span of 150m, a width of 5m, and a mast rising 65m above the water, potentially making it one of the city’s tallest structures.

Sarens was responsible for assisting Eiffage with the lifting of 12 bridge sections throughout the project, including 4 sections of the main mast and the 8  sections of the bridge.

The 65m main mast was divided into 4 sections. The largest mast section dimensions were:

• weight 62t,
• height 3.89m
• length 18.44m
• width  3.84m

Each section was lifted from the riverbank using Sarens’s CC2500 crane.

On completion of the mast, 8 bridge sections were lifted, staring from the riverbank and progressing over the river on Sarens’ modular barge from the island to the embankment on the Avenue de Muret side.

The largest bridge section dimensions were:

• weight 51t
• height  1.225m
• width 6.5m
• length  17.2min

The Sarens site equipment included a CC2500 Crawler Crane, a SSL114m (Super Lift), a Sennebogen SH35.5m, a Sarens Modular Barge, 3 electrical chain blocks with a 20t capacity, and 8 strand jacks to secure the bridge mast during erection before installing the final main mast shrouds.

The equipment was transported from Belgium to Toulouse by truck, requiring 23 trucks for the CC2500 crane and 26 trucks for the Sarens Modular Barge. The CC2500 took 4 days to install, while the Sarens Modular Barge required 10 days.

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