Structure Sliding and Lifting

Our expertise

Lifting and handling heavy structures are complex operations. We deliver tailored solutions adapted to each project configuration, from early design to final operation. Freyssinet has extensive experience in structural lifting, moving and sliding, including a number of box slides for the HS2 project.

Heavy handling includes:

heavy lifting, which consists in moving a structure or a load vertically,
sliding, which involves the horizontal shift of a structure or a load,
rotation sometimes, when the operation also entails a change in orientation of the structure.

Freyssinet, your project partner
Our teams support our customers throughout their projects, by being generally involved from the ECI or design phase through to execution, in order to assess their objectives and to produce optimum solutions that fully meet their specifications in terms of structures, phasing of works, budget and lead times.

Freyssinet has developed three different technologies for sliding complete structures from their fabrication area to their installation site. They consist of prefabricating a structure next to the railway track or the road and quickly transferring it to its final position during a brief period of track closure (approx. two days) in order to minimise traffic disruption.

Autoripage®
This technique consists of completely clearing the ground and sliding the structure on bentonite grout using Hebetec 1,000-tonne jacks. Once the sliding is complete, backfilling takes place in order to open the route to traffic.

Autofonage®
This technique consists of partly clearing the ground and then sliding and driving the structure forwards into the infill as the excavation work progresses, using the same equipment as for the Autoripage® technique. No backfilling is required as the volume of earth excavated is identical to the volume of the structure.

Air Pad Sliding
This technique is identical to the Autoripage® technique, with air pad sliding bearings (APS modules) in lieu of bentonite. It consists of completely clearing the ground, installing skidways, then moving the structure on APS modules, which have a friction coefficient of less than 1%. Once the sliding is complete, backfilling takes place in order to re-open the route to traffic.