• Bicycle bridge made of bio-based composite materials

  • A relative new material consists of balsa wood, flax, resin and hardener

  • World premiere

Bio-based bicycle bridge

The Fryslân provincial authority is building a bicycle bridge made of bio-based composite materials to complete the new ring road around the city of Leeuwarden. The bridge design was elaborated by the DRIVE construction team, consisting of Sweco/Witteveen+Bos, the provincial authority, the Reef Infra/Spie contracting group, and composites manufacturer Infra Composites.

Bio-based composites are relatively new in the infrastructure sector. The material used in this project consists of balsa wood, flax, resin and hardener. A study was performed in collaboration with a number of educational institutions to determine the optimal composition of the material. This resulted in a mixture that consists of 80% natural materials, with a service life of 50 years. The entire 66-metre-long roadway will be constructed out of bio-based composite, a world first at this scale. All partners involved gained new insights into bio-composites thanks to the materials study.

In February 2019 it was announced that the biobased composite bicycle bridge Ritsumasyl won the Circular Award Public 2019 in the Provincial category during the National Conference Circular Economy in The Hague.

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