In order to ensure a better knowledge of the structure, and an even finer preventive maintenance policy, but also to support research and development in complex areas, the CCI Seine Estuaire has signed an innovation partnership for the development of a technique for monitoring the pre-stress cables of the Normandy Bridge structure. Over time, these cables suffer from several pathologies inherent in the constructive technique used at the time of the construction of the bridge.
Why did you sign an innovation partnership?
An innovation partnership is a win-win system. It allows a public institution to use innovative companies to meet a need it seeks to meet without yet having the existing solution on the market. At the same time, it is an opportunity for innovative companies to test their solutions in a life-size way before a potential market.
As part of this innovation partnership, the CCI Seine Estuaire has selected two candidates, the joint Quadric Group - Gustave Eiffel University and the Laboratory for Materials Studies and Research (a subsidiary of the Setec Group).
At the launch of the innovation partnership, the objective assigned to the candidates is to achieve the development of a continuous and enhanced monitoring method for listening, quantifying and qualifying the breaks of wires of external pre-stress cables in the structure of the Normandy Bridge.
The two companies will conduct their studies in parallel. The mission is broken down into several technical phases: laboratory research, then applied to a representative sample of anchors before the technique is deployed over the entire work if it proves successful.
"This type of partnership is both a great vehicle for us to improve the monitoring of structural aging of the work and a great opportunity for innovative companies to test in situ their solutions, which are 100% French in this project,"says Claire Grivel, director of concessions at the CCI Seine Estuaire.