Tema, Aug. 11, GNA – The Bridge Maintenance Unit (BMU) under the Ghana Highway Authority (GHA) has cleared and put-up reinforcements on the damaged parts of the Ashaiman overpass on the Tema Motorway.
The exercise was to help transmit tensile strength to the beams and to restore it to its original strength, Mr. Roland Nii Quaye, the Supervisor on site, told the Ghana News Agency in an interview.
He said the beams supposed to carry the loads and distribute it was compromised as the result of impact, “if the overpass does not undergo maintains, the entire structure may be effected.
“So the plan is to repair the damaged section and restore the original lost strength back to the beams and that the entire system can now function as it has been designed to”.
Giving details of the maintenance works, Mr. Quaye said it involved taking some of the damaged part out, reinforcing the damage part of the structure with important element which looked like a tube containing strands called tendons and it supported the members that carried the load and also transmited tensile strength to the beams to distribute the load evenly.
He said BMU of the GHA plan to reform everything within the damaged structure for it to gain its original shape, they will cast a structural concreate and carbon fibre, and it was a technology used in Europe by construction engineers to put back the strength of defected structure.
He added that, they don’t want to inconvenience the travelling public with their presence so they were using high grade structure concrete, instead of taking 28 days to cure the concrete, it was rather going to take them three days to get full strength of concrete.
He commended the motoring public for their cooperation.
Mr Cecil Obodai, GHA PRO said that they were working ahead of time to open the road to full vehicular traffic before the August 26th, 2021 deadline.
GNA