Dillinger heavy plate for the
route des Tamarins

One of the most ambitious construction projects with numerous bridges has now been finished on the French Isle of Reunion: the Route des Tamarins was opened on June 23rd, 2009. Dillinger supplied for instance 2,835 t of heavy plates for the viaduct of Grande Ravine. The challenge to be overcome was big: a ravine of the dizzy depth of 170 m and a width of 320 m had to be traversed. Furthermore, the bridge should resist windstorms of up to 300 km/h. Last but not least, the biota had to be preserved and the bridge should be fit unobtrusively in the great landscape. The slim structure of the bridge was rendered possible especially by using thermomecanically rolled high-strength steel. Thus, the necessary plate thickness could be reduced while featuring at the same time good fabrication properties and mechanical properties.

In total, Dillinger supplied more than 7,000 t of heavy plates in thicknesses between 7 and 120 mm for different bridges. After the steel constructors in the French home country had cut, assembled and coated the plates, the supporting structures were transported thousands of kilometres in order to be finally installed on the construction site.