Michiel de Ruyter Bridge: Icon in the Urk landscape

On Urk, construction consortium 2KA is busy building a third bridge over the Urkervaart canal. The Michiel de Ruyter Bridge is essential for the future of Urk, connecting the new Zeehelden neighborhood with the rest of the fishing village and improving the accessibility of the whole of Urk. Apart from a spectacular design and the necessary challenges in "manufacturability," the cooperation between the municipality of Urk as client and the province of Flevoland as "consulting firm" is admirable.

Urk is growing rapidly eastward. "Because of the alleged detours, it has been a long-cherished wish of the municipality to realize a third traffic bridge over the Urkervaart canal," begins Dick van der Snee, civil engineering project leader at Urk municipality. "As early as 2006, the first steps were taken to this end, in conjunction with the construction of a new ring road. These plans became topical again around 2017 at the time there was the green light for the construction of the Zeehelden district, a completely new residential area. The cost of the new bridge could be partially offset against the land operations."

Hitchhiking with project team

In the current situation, Urk has two movable bridges over the Urkervaart canal; the Zwolsebrug and the Arie de Witbrug. The former is a bicycle bridge from 2006, while the Arie de Wit bridge for car traffic dates from 1989. The bridges are owned by the municipality, but operation is provided by Flevoland County. "We have had a relationship with the municipality of Urk for operating the bridges and locks for 33 years," said Bart Jansen, project manager for the province of Flevoland. "Initially from the control house on the Urk lock and since 2014 centrally remotely from the provincial office in Lelystad. Urk municipality's plans for the construction of the Michiel de Ruyter Bridge pretty much coincided with our plans for carrying out major maintenance on all provincial bridges and locks. We asked the municipality if it wanted to jump on that contract for the major maintenance of the Zwolle Bridge and the Arie de Wit Bridge. And at the same time, the municipality asked the province to make use of the expertise of the project team in the provincial office for the contracting of the Michiel de Ruyter Bridge, the operation of which we will also soon be handling."

Image Quality Plan

The province of Flevoland suggested that the construction of the Michiel de Ruyter Bridge be cast in a UAV-GC contract, just like the renovation contract on the provincial bridges and locks, Van der Snee continued. "That was quite a big issue for us as a small municipality. After all, we felt a strong need to have 'something' to say about the design of the bridge. It should be a landmark, a recognizable entrance to the village. From there the idea arose to work with an image quality plan. We engaged an architect who worked out a large number of variants. Eventually two image quality plans were drawn up: one for the bridge itself and one for the surroundings, traffic circle, roads, planting and landscaping. All that was integrated into a UAV-GC contract and led to a European tender." After a prequalification process, five candidates remained, after which it was awarded on the basis of EMVI in the summer of 2020 to construction consortium 2KA, consisting of Knook Steel and Mechanical Engineering, Knipscheer Infrastructure and ÆVO.

Scored on EMVI

"We won the tender on quality," says Edwin Raats, project manager at Knook Staal en Machinebouw and lead contractor on behalf of construction consortium 2KA. "We surpassed the cheapest tenders by scoring well on EMVI. In the tender we sat down together. We inventoried the surroundings and based on that we wrote a plan and made promises in terms of limiting environmental nuisance, attention to flora and fauna and limiting project risks. The latter had to do, among other things, with the electricity supply that was missing at the time. Thus, we took a risk management measure by applying a peak-shaver to reduce the power consumption. In addition, we visualized the movement and control of the bridge at an early stage using a 3D model via a digital twin to avoid surprises during execution. We deliberately chose to place the civil and mechanical engineering parts with one engineering firm, precisely because of the control of interfaces and all the advantages of one design and one 3D model."   

Flowing line

The specific design with a flowing line from the concrete abutment to the steel halyard as well as the round shapes in the steel balance and hammer style turned out to be not easy to realize. There are only a few factories in the Netherlands that can roll and set such a design. The eccentric engagement of the suspension rod on the halyard was also a "thingy. "The traffic trap is larger than the bicycle trap, but they are interconnected. At that coupling is the engagement point of the suspension rod. That creates a certain deformation that you can actually only assess in the final situation," Raats clarifies. "However, it has to connect for 100% to the concrete being realized earlier. A challenge not to have large dimensional deviations occur here. We have largely overcome this by releasing (deformation) calculations on the 3D model and by performing the last piece of concrete pour only after both bridge traps had been placed. Together with Knipscheer we took the necessary control measures by continuously monitoring each other's steps in the execution process. And that worked out well. We are almost at the end of the realization phase and can now cautiously conclude that no major surprises have occurred."

The project has also been a success for the municipality and the province to date. "We could just as easily have drawn up a RAW specification or a UAV-GC contract with a consulting firm, but then you still get a different approach," Van der Snee concludes. "This project was grafted onto a broad collaboration, because even after completion you continue to work together as the municipality (owner of the bridge) and province (responsible for operation). There are many more components involved than clinically delivering a bridge and supervising its implementation. Such cooperation also facilitates permitting thanks to mutual networking." The Michiel de Ruyter Bridge will be officially opened in early 2023. It will then be the third bridge over the Urkervaart canal, but not the last, according to Van der Snee. To be continued, no doubt!