The ‘México – Tuxpan’ highway is one of Mexico’s major communication projects, and will link the capital city with the coast town of Tuxpan, in the Gulf of Mexico.
This highway means an enormous investment, not only because of the 293-kilometer length, but also due to the country’s complicated geographical conditions, which have forced the project to take on-board 2.5 kilometers of bridges and four kilometers of tunnels, creating an endless number of challenges to the engineers.
In the State of Puebla, for the 36.7-km-long section between Necaxa and Ávila Camacho alone, 16 bridges have been projected, and among all of them stands out the 850-metre-long San Marco Bridge (2,789 ft). Five Flat-Top 21 LC 290 18t from Linden Comansa are being used in this bridge, especially for the construction of the pillars. One of them will be more than 200 metre high (656 ft), helping to make it the planet’s second highest bridge over pillars, after the Millau viaduct in France.
The cranes at the San Marco Bridge have a maximum load of 18 tonnes (39,683 lbs), have been erected with their maximum jib-length, 74 meters (246 ft), and can load up to 2,700 kilos at the jib end (5952 lbs). When the project is close to be finished, the cranes will reach spectacular heights, due to Linden Comansa’s climbing system and a large number of ties. From pillar two to pillar six of the bridge, the cranes will reach heights of 105, 198, 244, 140 and 75 meters respectively (344, 649, 800, 459 and 246 ft).
Groke, Linden Comansa’s official dealer in Mexico, is the maker of the work of these five cranes in this section of the project, granted to the consortium formed by Mexican ICA and Spanish FCC.
