ACCIONA, through a collaboration of its R&D+i Department with its Roads and Bridges specialised business unit, has announced the development of new geometric control software for the manufacturing of concrete segments used for bridges constructed using the Match Cast method.

In a statement, the Spanish multinational construction giant said that the methodology involves manufacturing concrete segments using the previous segment as a mould and a geometric reference to ensure a perfect fit when the segments are assembled.

The SeCAC software then guides the user during the process to geometrically define the segments and their subsequent manufacturing in the factory, recalculating new dimensional values for each piece, enabling potential variations that may have occurred during the concreting phase of the previous segment to be corrected.

The company launched the development of this new software after constructing the bridge over the Roskilde Fjord in Denmark and the viaduct for the Dubai Metro 2020 project. Both projects reaffirmed the need for a tool that can centralise and automate these processes, which to date has been performed by external software and tools.

This new software will enable ACCIONA to be more competitive and self-sufficient when constructing bridges using this method, which will generate significant cost savings as well as reducing construction times and minimising the social impact among local communities, the statement said.

It added that the company is currently using the software on a project to construct Section 2 of the Malolos-Clark railway line in the Philippines. An estimated 6,186 manufactured segments will be required for this project, it added.