Padma Bridge: Road slab placement complete

The Padma Bridge project has reached a new milestone with the completion of road slab placement work on the country's longest bridge.

The 6.15 kilometer-long bridge has a total of 2,917 road slabs, installed upon 42 pillars in 41 spans. Each slab can be up to 22 meters long and 2 to 2.15 meters wide. In each span, an average of 69 slabs has been laid. The work of laying road slabs on the bridge at the end of Jazira began in March 2019.

The work was completed by laying the last road slab on the '2-F' span of the pillars 12 and 13 of the Padma Bridge at 10:10 am today, reports our correspondent quoting Ahmed Ahsan UllahMajumder, assistant engineer of the Padma Bridge project.

Ahmed Ahsan also said that a two-millimeter water insulation layer will be applied to the slabs. Along with pouring two layers of pitch with stone, cement, and bitumen, the insulation layer will be about 100 millimeters thick.

The junction of the two spans on the bridge's road has a 6meter gap. On-spot casting is in the process. One slab has already been cast, and there are still 13 more to go, he said.

The installation of road slabs took two years, five months, and four days. Vehicles will operate on the upper level of the two-story Padma Bridge, while trains will operate on the lower level. In August of this year, 2,959 concrete railway slabs were installed on the main bridge.