In Crimea, the installation of a railway arch bridge across the Kerch Strait has begun. The railway arch of the Crimean bridge was delivered to the fairway supports
A video appeared on the Internet of how builders on Tuesday lifted the railway arch of the bridge across the Kerch Strait weighing 6 thousand tons - one of the two largest structures of the facility - onto fairway supports, to a height of 35 meters from sea level.
This was reported by information Center project "Crimean Bridge".
“The process of raising the arch to the designed height took about 12 hours. The arch will be secured throughout the day,” the press release says.
In the next month, builders will mount the end elements of the arch, and will also untwist it - lower it onto special supporting parts.
The maritime operation to transport the railway arch span from the technological site in eastern Crimea to the fairway began on Sunday morning. The movement of ships in the Kerch Strait was suspended for 72 hours. The ban does not apply to Navy and FSB vessels, as well as those participating in the bridge construction process.
The floating pores took on the weight of the arch on the afternoon of August 27. Then the floating system began moving from the shores of Kerch to the Kerch-Yenikalsky Canal. By the morning of August 28, the arch was delivered to the fairway.
The two arched spans - the railway and the road - are the largest elements of the bridge. The road arch is a thousand tons lighter than the railway arch; delivery of the structure to the fairway is scheduled for September. The arches will ensure the passage of ships through a free space 185 meters wide and 35 meters high from the water.
The nineteen-kilometer Kerch Bridge will be the longest in Russia and will connect the peninsula with mainland Russian Federation by road and railway. Car traffic on the bridge will open in December 2018, train traffic in December 2019. The cost of the object is 227.9 billion rubles in prices of the corresponding years. The general contractor of the construction is the Stroygazmontazh company owned by Arkady Rotenberg.
Floating pores delivered the railway arch of the Crimean Bridge to the fairway supports on the night of August 28, 2017 and brought into the bridge to rise to a height of 35 meters. The multi-hour operation to install the arch will continue throughout the day.
The installation of such large structures in offshore waters is being carried out for the first time in the practice of domestic bridge construction. Delivery and installation of the arches of the Crimean Bridge is perhaps the most difficult operation of the entire project. Soviet and Russian bridge builders have never had experience similar in scale, climatic and hydrological conditions. This naval operation is the result of accumulated practice and advanced technologies domestic and global bridge construction.
The finished railway arch span had been lifted from the slipway the day before with powerful jacks and installed on rolling supports (“trolleys”). Then the arch “descended” from the slipway to the sea - along roll-out piers. At the end of the piers, auxiliary supports were made, on which the arch was placed for subsequent operations. At this stage, the floating crane joined the work. With its help, its end elements were undocked (they will be transported separately and mounted after the arch is raised to the designed height).
The next stage is working with the floating system. The compartments of her pontoons were filled with water (ballast). The submerged pontoons were brought under the arched span. Then the ballast was gradually dropped, the pontoons rose, and the floating supports took over the arch.
On August 27, the floating system departed from the technological site late in the evening and reached the Kerch-Yenikalsky Canal, covering a distance of almost 4 km in 1.5 hours at a speed of 2 knots.
This part of the operation involved the lead pulling tug, pusher tugs supporting auxiliary and shunting tugs, and work boats for communication and coordination. 300 meters before entering the target, the floating piers were “pulled up” using pile anchors, anchor cables and other special equipment. Now it is secured with anchor cables.
The operation of lifting and installing the arch involves up to 30 people per shift (engineers, slingers, welders, surveyors, quality control specialists).
On this moment lifting cables are being secured to the lifting beams of the arched span- such beams are installed under the lower part of the arch - along the edges - specifically for lifting it to the design height. After this, the load will be gradually transferred to the jacks: first 5% of the weight of the span, then 50%, then 100%. The arch will rise from the floating supports by 1 meter.
Bridge builders are now step-by-step checking the reliability of the designs of units and sling elements. The arch will be suspended for about an hour and only after this will the further rise of the arched span begin at a speed of 5 meters per hour.
In total, the installation of the railway arch on the fairway will not exceed three days. At this time, navigation in the Kerch-Yenikalsky Canal is limited. As soon as the builders confirm the reliability of fixing the arched span at the designed height, navigation of ships along the fairway will resume as usual.
The final installation of the railway arch on the fairway supports will take about a month. Construction and installation work will be carried out from working platforms installed on fairway supports and will not affect navigation in the Kerch-Yenikalsky Canal.
The second stage of the naval operation is planned for September (installation of a road arch).
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The Kerch Bridge violates international law and will lead to the isolation of Ukraine. This was stated by Deputy Minister for Temporarily Occupied Territories Georgiy Tuka.
“With such actions (the construction of the bridge. - Gazeta.Ru) the Russian Federation violates all international norms. It actually dooms Ukraine to a certain kind of isolation by sea,” he said in an interview with Ukrainian media.
“The situation with the closure of the Kerch Strait in connection with the construction of a bridge to Crimea cannot be called simple; the issue is being investigated,” the official concluded.
Recently, talk about the Kerch Bridge from the Ukrainian authorities has been heard more and more often.
Thus, on August 4, 2017, the Minister of Justice of Ukraine Pavel said that he did not see the possibility for Russia to complete the Kerch Bridge, the builders of which, a few days before this statement, completed the assembly of the road arch, closing it at a height of 45 m.
“Russia cannot normally build smaller infrastructure facilities. I know that after the Olympics in Sochi, entire stadiums have already begun to be destroyed,” he said, without specifying which specific sports facility was defective.
"No self-respecting international company she won’t even put a nut or bolt there, because she risks losing her business in the EU, USA, Japan - in countries that have joined the sanctions against Russia regarding Crimea. These sanctions also prohibit companies from supplying any equipment there. We see what happened with . That is, in my deep conviction, this project has virtually no prospects,” Petrenko said.
He also expressed the opinion that everyone who will be involved in the construction Kerch Bridge, will fall under international sanctions. However, Petrenko’s disbelief in the successful commissioning of the Kerch Bridge does not prevent his department from preparing a claim for damage to the Ukrainian budget due to this construction.
“Further construction and commissioning of the bridge across the Kerch Strait will lead to a significant reduction in ship calls in sea ports Mariupol and Berdyansk,
a decrease in the cargo turnover of these ports, a slowdown in their development, a decrease in the profitability of metallurgical enterprises in the region, a decrease in the profits of port operators and branches of the Administration of Sea Ports of Ukraine, which is unacceptable,” the head of the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine previously stated.
After this, a deputy of the State Council of Crimea called the statement of Pavel Petrenko and others like him populist.
“The statement is certainly inadequate. It indicates that, unfortunately, the Ukrainian state is still not ready to recognize the objective reality that exists. They live in a foggy state in their own heads,” the parliamentarian said.
But such responses from the Russian side do not in any way reduce the increased attention of the Ukrainian side to the Kerch Bridge. Thus, at the end of June 2017, the head of the prosecutor’s office of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea stated that Ukraine intends to turn to American specialists with a request to monitor the construction of a bridge across the Kerch Strait. The security official indicated that one of the pressing issues for Kyiv is possible harm to Cherny and Sea of Azov, which can be caused by the construction of this object.
August 1, 2017
Today, the Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation Maxim Sokolov arrived in Kerch on a working visit. He got acquainted with the progress of work on the construction of a transport crossing across the Kerch Strait, telling reporters that the construction of the bridge is on schedule.
In light of the upcoming installation operation, the official assured that this would not bring significant difficulties for seafarers. “The Ministry of Transport has issued a corresponding order to restrict navigation in the Kerch-Yenikalsky Canal. It stipulates that the installation of bridge arches will take place from August 1st. During this period, permits for passage through the Kerch-Yenikalsky Canal will be issued directly by the port captain,” said Maxim Sokolov. Maximum restrictions on entry into the channel will apply when the arch is installed on already constructed supports. This will not take more than 72 hours, the Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation assured. 
Active work continues on the Kerch Bridge. Soon, bridge builders will begin transporting the arches to the fairway supports of the future bridge. Recently, construction workers completed the major assembly of the bridge's road arch.
Construction of the Kerch Bridge (August, 2017).
Oleg Shamansky
The work took place on the Kerch coast. It closes at a height of 45 meters from the base of the structure. In general, the arch consists of 200 large elements: blocks of orthotropic slabs, arched vaults, and so on. To assemble them, workers had to make 4.5 km of butt seams of the first category and tighten 175 thousand pieces of high-strength bolts.
It is important to note that the arched span of the railway bridge is already ready for installation in the design position. Once the arches are installed on the fairway supports, they will ensure the unhindered passage of ships through a free space 185 meters wide and 35 meters high from the water.
Transportation of the arches will take place from August 3 to September 4 of this year..
Meanwhile, a pontoon is on its way to Kerch, which will be used to transport the arches to the fairway supports. The watercraft should be in Kerch soon. In parallel with this, work on the fairway continues. The supports to which transportation will take place in a few days are almost ready.
August 2, 2017
Bridge builders carried out a technical rollout of the railway arch of the Kerch Bridge to a distance of several meters. Thus, the readiness of all systems and mechanisms was checked for the subsequent “loading” of the Kerch Bridge arches onto special pontoons for their subsequent transportation to the fairway of the Kerch-Yenikalsky Canal. It should be noted that good weather conditions are important for successful transportation of arches.
During the transportation of the arches, which will take no more than three days, shipping traffic in the strait will be suspended, and the procedure itself will take place in several stages:
- First, the finished railway arch will be lifted from the slipway using powerful jacks. Then it will be installed on a specialized rolling mechanism.
- After the manipulations have been completed, the arch will be lowered to the sea along piers, at the end of which supports will be installed, where the multi-ton structure will be located.
- Next, a floating crane will come into operation, which will allow the end elements of the arched span to be undocked.
- The end elements themselves will be transported to the construction site separately and installed after the arch has been raised to the design height. Thus, the structure will be ready for loading onto pontoons. The next step is to work directly with the pontoons.
- The compartments of the four pontoons will gradually be filled with water, which will act as ballast.
- Pontoons filled with water will be placed under the arched span, where ballast water will be gradually released.
- The pontoons will rise above the surface of the water and the floating system will take over the arch.
- Now the arch, submerged on pontoons, faces a five-kilometer path along the water surface. This procedure will be provided by a towing tug, pusher tugs, auxiliary and shunting tugs, as well as work boats for communication and coordination.
How the Arch is moved: 
1 is a hydraulic station and cable jacks in front of it. There are steel cables running inside the devices 2. When the carriage with the Arch approaches, devices 2 are removed and only monolithic plates 3 remain.
Note that from the Kerch fortress there is a clear view of the construction of the Kerch Bridge. Observation deck from the fort is one of the most popular places among those who want to admire the grandiose construction site.
August 17, 2017
In the morning, the editors of the KERCH.COM.RU website began to receive reports that it was impossible to visit the site at the base of the bridge: people in the uniform of the National Guard were preventing this. Those especially interested in the construction are explained that the area from Cementnaya Slobodka to Solnechny and the dachas is closed to the public until September 4th. The reason for the cordon is said to be mine clearance. Law enforcement officers are jealous of visitors, especially those who carry optics. They are very interested in documents and the purpose of the visit.
August 18, 2017
Fairway. Windy weather continues. Kerch froze in anticipation of the main event - the installation of the arch on the fairway.
August 20, 2017
Installed jacks 650 tons
Installation of cable jacks for lifting arches.
Operating principle of a cable jack.
August 21, 2017
Kerch: transportation of bridge arches delayed due to wind
The maritime operation to install the arches of the Kerch Bridge is being delayed due to strong winds. Today, August 21, the wind continues to gust up to 14 meters per second, which is contrary to the rules: when loading the arch onto the floating system, the wind speed should not exceed 5 m/s; during transportation – up to 10 m/s.
The spans of the road bridge on the sea part gain height from Tuzla Island to the fairway. 360 degree panorama on most.life
August 22, 2017
Storm warning: windy and hot