Bridge Building Demolition, University of Liverpool

This was a two storey office building, linking two areas of the Engineering faculty, suspended from three, storey height steel girders and spanning 30 metres across a plaza area / main railway line into Liverpool Lime St Station.

The main support girders carried a system of secondary steel hangers, struts and beams, which in turn supported lightweight (‘Siporex’ type foamed concrete) floor units.

A restriction that we were not allowed to place any load on the lightweight ‘plaza’ structure below the bridge that separated it from the railway placed very severe constraints on demolition methods and sequence.

After asbestos removal, the bridge was dismantled piecemeal from the top down, removing screed, siporex panels then secondary steelwork, leaving the main girders intact. As the main girders were still under load, it was necessary to install temporary bracing to stabilise them until we were ready to remove them.

Once the secondary structures were removed, the support girders were lifted out during a single 5 hour overnight closure of the railway line.

 

This project was undertaken as part of the University of Liverpool Engineering Restructuring Project, a major redevelopment of the existing university facilities.

The overall project was undertaken by Messrs BAM Construction, for whom we were the the strip out, temporary works/structural alteration and demolition partner. Our works included:

Accreditations