The Pocitelj bridge (also known as Hercegovina bridge), a project supervised by a team of engineers from IRD Engineering, curves over the Neretva River, offering a remarkable view of the Čapljina area, passing by the old town of Počitelje. It is among the highest bridges in Southeast Europe, with its highest pillar (of a total of six) being over 100 meters high. The bridge, classified as a prestressed concrete frame structure with 7 spans with a total length of 945 meters, is also unique in that all four lanes of the highway are located on one single structure.
Overall, 38,000 m3 of concrete, 9,000 tons of reinforcement and 1,500 tons of prestressing cables have been used in its construction. 20,000 m2 of asphalt and waterproofing were then added, and the final layer of asphalt was recently installed.
Finally, the Faculty of Civil Engineering, Architecture and Geodesy at the University of Mostar have recently coordinated the load test, in which 12 trucks weighing 40 tons each were placed on several target points of the structure.
“The test results showed that the bridge behaves in accordance with the design conditions. The deflections and the residual deformations are within the designed limits, as well as the behaviour of the structure due to the dynamic loading of the bridge” declared Mr. Ismet Hajduk, Chief Engineer for Bridges and Facilities on the section Počitelj – Zvirovići on behalf of the project promoter JP Autoceste FBiH.
The construction of Pocitelj bridge has been financed from funds secured under a loan agreement concluded with the European Investment Bank (EIB) and from grants from the European Union through the Western Balkans Investment Framework (WBIF).
We would like to express our appreciation to all parties involved in the successful implementation of this project, and more specifically to our teams currently working in this and other sections of the Corridor Vc in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
If at any time you have any questions or want to give us your feedback, please e-mail us at info@irdeng.com