Method has streamlined the replacement of an old bridge over Vale and spared country resources wants to accelerate the renovation or reconstruction of 5,000 road bridges.
A 70 meter high bridge, equivalent to a building of twenty floors, and a half kilometer long, was displaced 20 meters This Wednesday in Germany, in an unprecedented engineering feat in the country. Experience may be useful for accelerating the replacement of some bridges in the country, which has a long list of structures to need renovation or reconstruction.
The technique does not require the need to interrupt traffic during bridge replacement and has as its advantages the savings of resources and a shorter construction time, according to Autobahn, the public company responsible for German highways. The busy structure weighs 40 thousand tons.
The bridge is located in the municipality of Rinsdorf, in the state of Rhines of North-Ravetfália, in western Germany and the most populous in the country, and is part of the A45 motorway, which connects the city of Dortmund to Aschaffenburg, Bavaria. Only in this highway is the replacement of more than 60 bridges planned.
How the bridge was moved
The six pillars of the bridge were slowly pushed by large hydraulic pressessliding over a structure similar to a large carril covered with teflon nonstick material and lubricated with a special grease. The process lasted about 20 hours.
At the end of the “march”, the bridge, with three lanes and bemma, was aligned with another similar bridge, also with three lanes and bemma, just 10 centimeters away. Each bridge will welcome a sense of traffic flow.
The technical feat was celebrated by the German Federal Government, which is under pressure to accelerate investments in improving the country’s infrastructure.
Claudia Elif Stutz, secretary of the Ministry of Transport, accompanied the movement of the structure and stated that the work “is a visible sign that we are making good progress in the modernization of road bridges.”
Engineers from Japan, interested in applying the technique, also watched the bridge movement this Wednesday.
Why this technique
The original bridge that crossed the Eisernbach River Valley had been built in 1967, and structural evaluations indicated the need for its replacement at the beginning of the past decade.
Interrupting traffic in the A45, however, would cause large inconvenience – circulate by the highway about 60 thousand vehicles per dayincluding loading trucks. It was decided to build two new bridges, one for each direction, at different times, in a work that lasted about eight years.
First, 20 meters from the old bridge, a new bridge began to be built in 2017. As soon as it was completed, it was hosted all the traffic of the section, and the old bridge was demolished in February 2022 – the highest implosion of a road bridge at the country was at the time.
At the scene of the demolished bridge the second new bridge was built. Once completed, it took all the traffic of the section so that the most challenging part of the project could take place: push 20 meters the first of the two new bridges, until it was leaning against the latest structure.
Autobahn states that the new technique adopted was the most suitable for the mountainous region. Build both new structures with a distance of 20 meters together, and then move one of them in full, dismissed the need to build additional pillars that would only be used during the works phase – the most common technique in other similar interventions in the country.
Thus, the construction time, the emissions of dust and noise, as well as the use of concrete and steel, were reduced, and the safety in the construction shipment was increased, according to Autobahn.
Many reforms and reconstructions ahead
The German government estimates that about 5,000 of the 40,000 road bridges need repairs or, in the most severe cases, replacement. More than half was built before 1985, mostly about valleys in the west of the country.
Designed for smaller traffic and lighter vehicles, these structures are now so overwhelmed that some have obvious signs of deterioration. In addition, there has been little maintenance in recent years.
A famous case, also in the A45 motorway, occurred in late 2021, when it was found that the Rahmede Bridge It was damaged to the point of threatening crumbling, and had to be closed. It was demolished in 2023 and a new bridge is under construction, but the first section should only be inaugurated in the middle of 2026. Deviation from traffic to secondary roads caused traffic jams, extreme noise and pollution in the region’s villages, negatively affecting the local economy.
The current German government, made up of Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and Social Democrats (SPD), promised accelerate the renovation and reconstruction of the country’s bridges. For this, it has a financial package that provides 500 billion euros for infrastructure investments in the next 12 years – but will have to face obstacles and delays in public tender processes and obtaining licenses for the projects.
Other bridge handling techniques are used in large infrastructure projects worldwide to facilitate construction and save resources. In 2019, for example, China ran 52.4 degrees a bridge of 46,000 tons and 263 meters long until it fits its other half. This method was used to minimize interference in rail traffic under the structure during the works phase.
