The Orewa Bridge

The Orewa Bridge for the new motorway north of Auckland has been in use for some years now. The steel beams for the new bridge were three at 17 metres x 1.8 metres, six at 28 metres x 1.8 metres and three at 28 metres x 1.8 metres. Also included were all the relevant bracing required to hold the structure together.

The lifetime requirements for a maintenance-free bridge were reflected by the coating specification - 350 microns of arc spray zinc coating followed by a sealer. According to the AS/NZS 2312:1994 standard, the first major maintenance of this zinc arc sprayed coating in a marine coastal non-polluted environment is 25 to 40 years and in an inland non-polluted environment, over 40 years.

Originally, the time allocated to apply the coating was six weeks, but due to a date line change this was reduced to three and a half weeks. C.S.P. Galvanising rose to the challenge using their new Metallisation Arc Spray 450S to apply the coating. Two teams operated around the clock to produce a high-quality coating.

"No major problems with the Metallisation equipment" said C.S.P foreman, Uri Purea, "It performed and so did our team."

Jacques de Reuck, Managing Director of Metal Spray Suppliers (NZ) Ltd (the exclusive New Zealand agent for Metallisation products) had only praise for the achievements of C.S.P. "A lot of people in the industry were sceptical that they could achieve this job completion in the lapsed time request - even more so after the delivery time was nearly cut in half. I raise my hat to these guys and recommend C.S.P. for their high quality and professional workmanship for any galvanised arc spray coating."