New asphalt recipe on the bridge in Braila. Resist?

Nine recipe for bituminous mixtures, used in October 2024, for the reasfalting of the 2nd way of the bridge suspended over the Danube from Brăila, behaved well over winter, which is why the manufacturer passed, starting on Monday, April 14, at the reasfalta with the same asphalt recipe and the 1 rolling road.

‘Starting on Monday, April 14, the route 1 of the bridge over the Danube, with the same new asphalt formula, which was used, on October, on the 2nd rolling road, which is the most circulated, is paved. He wanted to see how the new asphalt formula behaves over winter and behaved well. It is a harder formula, they say, and the risk of cracking would have been higher in winter, when the temperatures are low than in summer, on high temperatures. Because it was well behaved in winter, now it has been asphalted on the road 1. It was expected to warm up, to be positive temperatures, because, on negative temperatures, there is a risk not to catch waterproofing and asphalt, then we take it from the end, that the conditions were not respected and to whom it would be. And, so that there is no doubt, I said so: gentlemen, when the weather allows you, you start to work! If the asphalt is broken, your blame is clear, you can no longer invoke the weather, the unfavorable weather conditions or other things, « said the spokesman for the National Road Infrastructure Management (CNAIR), Alin Șerbănescu.

The drivers are warned that, in order to carry out the reasfalting works on DN 2S, the bridge suspended over the Danube, the traffic will be diverted, on April 14-June-3, on the 2nd rolling path, which will be open to traffic in both directions.

The bridge suspended over the Danube – the largest suspended bridge ever built in Romania, the third in size in Europe and the last bridge over the Danube before spilling in the Black Sea – was inaugurated on July 6, 2023, and shortly after the inauguration, the first issues related to the asphalt appeared. The bridge entered, in October 2024, for the fourth time in the process of reasfect, this time the manufacturer claiming that it will use a new recipe for bituminous mixtures, adapted to the specificity of this bridge, unique in Romania.

‘This time, as the builder claims, it is a new asphalt recipe, which was tested in a laboratory in Italy, a large European laboratory. The builder says that this asphalt recipe will resist and we will not have the problems so far, that it will be behaved in road traffic, including heavy traffic, and in summer we will no longer have the deformations we have had so far. Basically, it is a recipe adapted to the bridge from Braila, because, indeed, the bridge from Brăila is the only bridge of this kind in Romania, it is unique, it has some specificities of it. If you do the whole specific bridge, you have to make the specific asphalt, because it is seen that the standard asphalt has so far has not resisted, « CNAIR, Alin Șerbănescu spokesman told AGERPRES.

The bridge has a length of about 2 kilometers and gives the drivers an alternative, outside the Danube crossing, to reach the coast. Although the traffic on the bridge was opened on July 6, 2023, the work was not received by the Romanian authorities and, according to the Minister of Transport, Sorin Grindeanu, will not be received, until the builder will repair all the problems. Minister Sorin Grindeanu declared, on August 7, that the technical solution already used three times for paving the bridge over the Danube is a ‘bad’.

The initial value of the bridge project over the Danube was 1.996 billion lei, excluding VAT, non -reimbursable external funds, and the builder Association Astaldi Spa – IHI Infrastructure System Co. Ltd., currently called Webuild.