Bailey Bridge
The Bailey Bridge is a war, emergency or makeshift bridge that can be assembled from pre-assembled individual components such as lattice girders and road beams . It does not require any special equipment or devices for construction, can be transported by truck and can carry the heaviest loads up to tanks. Originally developed for the military sector, it is also used in the civil sector for temporary bridging.
use
Bailey bridges can be built with relatively little effort and are therefore not only used by the military around the world, large aid organizations also use Bailey bridges. They are also known as bridge devices or pioneer bridge devices. Thus, the subject bridge of THW in addition to the D-bridge , the Bailey bridge in use.
In Germany , 2360 t of elements for Bailey bridges are also held in federally owned bridge stores; this corresponds to a total length of around 790 meters. The segments consist of steel framework . In 2016, 12% of federal bridge equipment consisted of Bailey elements, measured by weight. A withdrawal is not planned.
Historical
The original development began in Germany, the main further development took place in Great Britain during World War II . Donald Coleman Bailey , an army worker who had model bridges for his hobby, suggested this construction method to his superiors. The first bridges were ready for use in 1944.
Bailey Bridges were built when the war was over
- Temporary bridge at Son , north of Eindhoven over the Wilhelminakanal ( Operation Market Garden )
- Temporary bridge over the Main to complete the Ludwigsbrücke , which was destroyed in April 1945, and the Old Main Bridge in Würzburg
- Makeshift bridge over the Saar , built under German artillery fire
- Temporary bridge over the Rhine near Wesel ( Operation Plunder ); some were still used after the war until the 1950s.
- Temporary bridge over the Werra near Laubach , built by English pioneers as a replacement for the blown up motorway bridge until 1952, used until 1963
- "Patton" Bridge as the first long-term permanent bridge in Cologne after the Second World War (1946–1951)
Bailey bridges in recent times:
- Temporary bridge in Glashütte (Saxony) , built after the Elbe flood in 2002 by the THW Müllheim and THW Pfedelbach.
- George W. Bush Bridge , Liberia (2006)
- Temporary bridge in Judenburg during the construction of the new Mur bridge (2009-2010)
- Temporary bridge in Kirnitzschtal after the 2010 flood, built by the THW Dresden (built 10/2010, in operation until 09/2012)
- Temporary bridge in Eisenach (Thuringia) - Grabental, replacement for damaged road bridge, since 2008
- Unstrut bridge at the Zeddenbachmühle near Freyburg (Unstrut) , built in 1996. In 2016, the superstructure was dismantled for overhaul and then reinstalled on new abutments.
- Juba Bridge , the only bridge over the Nile in South Sudan .
- July 2019 Overbuilding of the endangered bridge on the Hammer Canal in Esslingen am Neckar by several THW local associations
For other purposes
The launch tower for the launch of the Skylark missiles in Woomera , Australia was assembled from segments of Bailey bridges.
technology
The individual components have a maximum weight of 259 kg and can also be transported on smaller vehicles. There are three Army standard sizes for Bailey bridges in the United States called M1, M2, and M3.
Bailey bridges are technically obsolete today, but a number of other bridge devices are used, such as the Z bridge or the SBG 66 bridge device.
gallery
Emergency bridge in the Albanian mountains, National Road 6 near Burrel
Destroyed German Jagdpanzer IV and Bailey Bridge on the Dortmund-Ems Canal near Dreierwalde in April 1945
Bailey Bridge in Angola (2019)
literature
- Peter Steinmüller: The bridge as a system , in: VDI nachrichten No. 50/51 / 52-2016 of December 16, 2016, p. 26f, online
- Hans Oehme: The Bailey bridge device In: ZS-Magazin , No. 12, 1972, p. 18 (PDF; 26.6 MB)
Individual evidence
- ↑ www.strassen.nrw.de , accessed on March 8, 2012
- ↑ Peter Steinmüller: The bridge as a system , in: VDI nachrichten No. 50/51 / 52-2016 of December 16, 2016, p. 27, here:
- ↑ Patton Bridge on www.ebertplatz.de
- ↑ Report on the bridge dismantling on thw-dresden.de , accessed on 11 December 2012
- ↑ Message in the Kyffhäuser Nachrichten
- ↑ Article in the Naumburger Tageblatt , accessed on September 5, 2018
- ↑ https://www.7aktuell.de/message.php?id=22143
- ↑ Peter Steinmüller: The bridge as a system , in: VDI nachrichten No. 50/51 / 52-2016 of December 16, 2016, p. 26, here: