The North Manama Causeway Bridge is the largest infrastructure project ever undertaken in Bahrain. It consists of a double bridge leading to the Bahrain Financial Harbour business centre and a double viaduct consisting of two 1.4 km bridges along Manama's busiest avenue. The project also includes 2.5 km of new roads.
To achieve the deck of the viaduct, the team has used the 'precast segmented' method. Specifically, the 2,250 or so segments of the deck, some weighing as much as 120 tonnes, were prefabricated in an area specially designed for this purpose. They were then trucked to the already built part of the deck, up to the launching girder. The successive cantilevering operations were conducted 24/24 and 13 days out of 14.
The construction was carried out in several stages to a tight schedule. To meet the 10-month deadline for building 1.1 km of roads and two 50 metre bridges, Six Construct and its partners pulled out all the stops. Within weeks, the first teams arrived in Bahrain and two 8,000 tonne ships were chartered from the maritime base of Ajman in the UAE to bring in cranes, excavators, trucks, drilling equipment, scaffolding, formwork, etc. to the worksite.