The A34 Wolvercote viaduct in the UK carries a 4 lane highway across a river, a railway line and the A40. The existing 8 span structure was built in the early 1960's and needed to be replaced. To maintain traffic over the viaduct throughout the replacement process a phased demolition and new construction scheme was used. To minimise disruption to traffic a new east carriageway was constructed alongside the existing 4 lane viaduct, followed by demolition of the old east carriageway structure and skidding of the new structure across into final position. DLT were contracted by main contractor Costain Limited to design, supply and operate a hydraulic lifting and skidding system to sideways slide the 254m long, 8 span, 4920 tonne new east carriageway the 16.6m from its construction position into final position on 8 parallel skidding tracks. Skidding, jack down and re-opening of the viaduct took place in a 18 hour overnight road and rail possession using our DL-SU350 bridge sliding system in March 2010.

The DL-SU350 bridge sliding system was developed specially for this application and is capable of both vertical jacking and horizontal skidding, with a maximum safe working load at each support point of 350 tonnes. 32 No DL-SU350 units were used for this project, arranged on 8 skid lines with 4 support points for line. The system is capable of maintaining a support point level tolerance of +/- 2mm during skidding and has a movement speed of 7.5 m/hour. For further details please contact us.