About a month ago, I went for a trip on the delta of the Po. With the car, I crossed for the first time in my life, a “pontoon bridge” (in Italian “Ponte di Barche”). But what is it? A pontoon bridge or floating bridge, uses floats or shallow-draft boats to support a continuous deck for pedestrian and vehicle. The buoyancy of the supports limits the maximum weight they can carry. Most pontoon bridges are temporary, used in wartime and civil emergencies. But two that i crossed on the Po river ar permanent, and it is necessary to request an authorization (paying) for its removal in case of transit of large boats. In fact, such bridges can require a section elevated, or can be raised or removed, to allow waterborne traffic to pass. Permanent floating bridges are useful for water-crossings where it is not considered economically feasible to suspend a bridge from anchored piers. Such bridges can require a section that is elevated, or can be raised or removed, to allow waterborne traffic to pass. Pontoon bridges have been used since ancient times and have been used to great advantage in many battles in history, among them the Battle of Garigliano, the Battle of Oudenarde, the crossing of the Rhine during World War II, and during the Iran–Iraq War Operation Dawn 8. For designing a pontoon bridge, the engineer must take into consideration the Archimedes’ principle: Each bridge can support a load equal to the mass of the water that it displaces. This load includes the mass of the bridge and the same pontoon. If the maximum load of a bridge section is exceeded, one or more pontoons become submerged.
On the delta of the Po there are THREE Pontoon bridges! (Boccasette, Santa Giulia and Gorino)