Renewing of the Melida-Grancia Tunnel by Pizzarotti

Based in Bellinzona, Switzerland since 1994, Generale Costruzioni Pizzarotti SA company has a long history. It is in fact totally owned by the Italian Pizzarotti & C. S.p.A, founded in Parma in 1910 as an individual company by Gino Pizzarotti and now certified as the second general construction company in Italy. Partner of public bodies and large private companies, Pizzarotti & C. S.p.A. is active in Italy and abroad, especially in the construction of road and railway infrastructure, airport construction, energy sectors, in industrial plants and in residential, hospital and prison buildings.

In Ticino, and throughout the Swiss territory, the general contractor Costruzioni Pizzarotti SA deals mainly with railway works of art, construction of tunnels and underground works in general, including the restoration of tunnels.

The object of this contract is precisely the restoration of the Melide-Grancia Tunnel on the Lugano Sud - Mendrisio motorway, with a restoration of the main structure of the vault of the tunnel. Restoration carried out by laying two prefabricated concrete half-shells, which function as a permanent formwork, the back of which is then realized with sprayed concrete, to achieve the new supporting structure of the vault.

Historic collaboration with the Pizzarotti group

The methods and timing of work as well as the need to have a capillary control on the quality of concrete and the expected use of 9,000 cubic meters of concrete type SCC, among others, led Pizzarotti SA to reject the hypothesis of buying concrete from third parties, preferring self-production on site with its own batching plant.

The procurement of the Pizzarotti SA has therefore been activated proposing a commercial tender to the main manufacturing companies of batching plants on a national and international level with strict technical operating conditions to fulfil.

Among these companies was MCT Italy, which can boast a historic collaboration with the Pizzarotti group, especially with regard to the precast division at the three operating sites of Ponte Taro (PR), Lucignano (AR) and Melfi (PZ).

After a careful analysis of the technical specifications requested, the tender office of MCT Italy has identified the MCM Bellatrix H container mobile system as the ideal solution, perfectly meeting the required requirements.

In fact, this batching plant perfectly combines the flexibility and manageability of a mobile plant, with high levels of productivity and control of the concrete, all combined with a minimum footprint of the plant, necessary as a basic requirement for Pizzarotti SA, given the limited availability of space.

The innovative configuration encloses the entire plant in two 40‘ containers, certified by Rina, which also makes transport on any means (truck, train, ship) extremely easy and it allows an absolutely fast assembly and commissioning. All of this makes the MCM Bellatrix H batch plant the ideal solution for temporary and fast-moving construction sites. The planetary mixer type MAV1500/1000 makes the plant extremely versatile and suitable for the production of a wide range of concrete for all the different classes of consistency including concrete with steel and polypropylene fibres, as well as GRC.

The batching plant MCM Bellatrix H is managed by the Compunet software which represents the most technological part and makes operation particularly easy, allowing customizable production reports as well as the bidirectional exchange of input and output data with the customer’s accounting system.

Thanks to these features, the MCM Bellatrix H mobile system also perfectly meets the requirements of Annex A to Law 11 December 2016 n.232, which in the framework of the new national plan „Transition 4.0“ allows to take advantage of a tax credit in 3 years equal to 50% of the value of the asset purchased.

The mixing of the concrete takes a very short time and the aggregates, cement, admixtures dosing systems are extremely precise. The automatic humidity and plasticity control system on aggregates and mixer also allows to measure and correct in real time the amount of water in the mixer. After the first part of the mixing, the software reads and determines the concrete plasticity. All parameters are displayed on the main screen and the operator can monitor the process in real time or request a report that is automatically saved.

The planetary mixer is equipped with automatic washing system that can be activated either from the operator’s cabin or directly from the control panel next to the mixer.

Very satisfied with the batching plant

For this project, a mixer of type 1500/1000 was selected for the production of up to 40 cubic meters of high-quality concrete per hour. The concrete is discharged and transported through truck mixers. Ing. Luca Cellini, Sales Manager of MCT Italy, who was involved in the batching plant proposal and sale, said: „The MCM Bellatrix H mobile batching plant is the ideal solution for temporary construction sites. In fact, it perfectly combines flexibility and rapidity of installation with a high-quality control of the concrete. We are extremely proud to have renewed the collaboration with the Pizzarotti Group in a country like Switzerland that represents a historic market for MCT Italy“. 

Ing. Umberto Salvagni, Site Manager of Pizzarotti SA, said: „We are very satisfied with our batching plant, we appreciated the easy and minimum assembly and commissioning times. We are also very satisfied with the quality of the concrete we are able to produce, since it is also a „special“ concrete as SCC. We highly appreciated the remote assistance service that, directly from the MCT headquarters, allows us to implement different settings of the system and customizations of the software. Everything is processed just in time in order to meet the specific requests of our client.“