Royal Arsenal Pier Woolwich

A unique ‘box steel’ pontoon design to Lloyds Linkspan Rules.

The fixed and canting brows span over 85 metres to the pontoon.

Instead of a conventional Lloyds Linkspan Rules structure (which would have needed 26 watertight compartments) the frame was built similar to a Virendeel bridge. Most of the unpainted internal space is filled with polystyrene which was then purged with Nitrogen and sealed.

To build this pontoon fast and simply the frame was designed with identical ‘cells’. All base plates were rolled to achieve strength without stiffeners.

Again, for ease of build, side plate stiffeners were put on the outside of the hull and doubled as fender attachment points.

The 130 tonne, 32 metre x 10 metre x 2.4 metre pontoon being launched.