The Pelješac Bridge in Croatia – after many strenuous years of building, the “Pearl of Pelješac” (as we call it affectionately) was ceremoniously opened on 26. July 2022.
Up to now, the southern part of Croatia could only be reached by land by passing through Neum, which belongs to Bosnia and Herzegovina. This meant crossing an EU external border twice, with all the necessary checks and controls this entails, which cost a great deal of time. This bridge was built to avoid this bottleneck.
The roughly 22 m wide and 2404 m long new bridge connects the Croatian mainland with the peninsula Pelješac and opens a purely Croatian route from the north into the south of the country, connecting to cities such as Dubrovnik. The bridge is designed as highway with two lanes in each direction.
Construction of this amazing bridge started on 30. July 2018. The engineering was complicated by the fact that the region is subject to earthquakes. The led to extra requirements in movement, load bearing capacity and durability. Due to the corrosive maritime atmosphere all the steel components and other parts of the bridge needed a special coating. The decision was made to use piping and connectors from cast iron for the drainage system on the bridge, specifically for our corrosion resistant PREIS® BML piping conglomerate. This material is naturally form stable and resistant to movement and extreme temperature ranges which gives PREIS® BML a further unique identification in contrast to other products for infrastructure project. These characteristics are even enough to have a positive effect on the lifetime calculations of the total structure. In addition, PREIS® BML is mainly manufactured from recycling material and can also later be recycled, making it sustainable and environmentally advantageous.
Factbox:
The bridge is 2404 metres long and divided into 13 sections. The main bridge over the Pelješac Channel is a cable-stayed bridge with twelve pylons. The five central spans are each 285 metres. The ship clearance is 55 metres over mean sea level..
