When you choose to work with a pedestrian footbridge manufacturer, they’ll work with you throughout the process to ensure that the bridge meets your exact specifications. A good bridge manufacturer will follow a rigorous process that helps to ensure high standards throughout the manufacturing of your bridge. This article will help you learn what to expect when working with a pedestrian bridge manufacturer so you can make the best decision for your project.
What You Can Expect When Working with a Pedestrian Footbridge Manufacturer
If you’ve never worked with a pedestrian footbridge manufacturer before, here’s what you can typically expect from them.
Designing Your Bridge
They will guide you with the planning phase of your project to understand the design requirements including the unique attributes of your bridge site, usage, and appearance. Typically, they will contract with a licensed engineering firm, for the design of your bridge so that your bridge is designed by a licensed professional engineer.
Why Choose Areté Structures?
At Areté Structures, our sister company Areté Engineers custom-designs our bridges using the Allowable Stress Design (ASD) Method and/or AASHTO specifications to meet the highest quality of standards. Our team is also selective on the size and loading conditions so that we can provide you with the most cost-effective and optimized design.
Manufacturing Your Bridge
Every bridge manufacturer has a fabrication process they follow, which guarantees specific results when you work with them. This includes being very selective of the materials they choose to use and who they choose to purchase them from. If their manufacturing process isn’t on their website, ask them about it.
Why Choose Areté Structures?
At Areté Structures, our fabrication process is very exact, which allows us to ensure your bridge components are free from human error and meet your specifications. Our process includes:
- Using precision CNC machinery to fabricate all critical bridge members.
- Labeling all parts to make the assembly process fast and easy.
- Providing you with a critical component pre-assembly certification to guarantee fit and function.
Delivering Your Bridge
Be sure to ask how the manufacturer typically delivers their bridges. They can send bridges unassembled or fully assembled. If you opt for a full assembly delivery, ask about the bridge segment sizes to ensure your team can easily set the bridge.
Why Choose Areté Structures?
We choose to construct our bridges using fiber reinforced polymer (FRP). It’s a high-strength, lightweight, corrosion-resistant material which makes it easy to transport bridges and quickly install them. Typically, we deliver our bridges unassembled and provide you with a complete set of plans and field instructions. However, if you need us to send it assembled, our bridge segments can be up to 10 feet wide and 35 feet long.
Assembling Your Bridge
If the manufacturer delivers your bridge unassembled, ask them if they’ll be available for questions during your assembly process (and what time of the day will they be available). This is important because if you have a problem during this step, you should be able to quickly ask your question to resume working without delaying the project.
Why Choose Areté Structures?
As a certified small business, we have an on-call commitment to our customers. Someone from our team is available 24/7 to answer your questions. In addition, to help keep the assembly process moving efficiently, we will provide you with an instructional guide and video before delivering your bridge.
Contact Us to Learn Why We Are Right for Your Project
Contact us to learn why Areté Structures would be the best fit for your next bridge project. If you already know your bridge specifications and need a quote, request one here.
