Testing Major Footbridges in Italy

In Italy every newly built structure must be “tested” (“collaudata”) by a so called “tester” (“collaudatore”) before being officially opened and used. According to the Italian regulation, the tester represents a third party in the building process who must be independent from the designer, the site supervisor, or the contractor, and has a vital responsibility for the success of a project, especially in public works. The tester is the person responsible for ascertaining that the as built structure is correctly able to sustain the design loads; this figure is therefore a sort of independent checker of the real structure.

After dedicating his whole career to bridges, both in the academy and the industry, prof. Siviero had the opportunity and the privilege of testing two of the most important footbridges built in Italy in the last decade.

The first one is the fourth bridge over Canal Grande river in Venice, Ponte della Costituzione, designed by Santiago Calatrava, a very well-known and discussed footbridge. The second one is the so called Ponte del Mare in Pescara, a twin curved cable stayed footbridge with the longest span in Italy.

In the form of an interview, the authors, which have been collaborating for many years, will tell the story of these two major Italian footbridges highlighting the most important challenging aspects related to their construction, as the control of the settlements in a unique environment in the first case, and the difficult control of the vibrations in the second one.

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