Europe Bridge (Koblenz)

Europabrücke Koblenz
Convicted	Bundesstrasse 9
Crossing of	Moselle
place	Koblenz
construction	1. reinforced concrete - arch bridge; 2. prestressed concrete - Cantilever Bridge
overall length	400 m
Longest span	128 m
start of building	1932, 1952, 1972
completion	1934, 1954, 1974
planner	Franz Dischinger (1934) ; Ulrich Finsterwalder (1954)
	location
	Road map of the Koblenz area
	4 = Europe bridge

50.364405555556 7.58825Coordinates: 50 ° 21 ′ 52 ″ N , 7 ° 35 ′ 18 ″ E

The Europabrücke spans the Moselle in Koblenz . The road bridge connects the city center with the Lützel district as part of the B 9 . The first bridge was built in 1934. After being destroyed in World War II , the reconstruction was completed in 1954. In 1974 it was widened from four to eight lanes with the addition of a second bridge .

New Moselle Bridge (1934)

Until recently, the historic Balduin Bridge was the only connection across the Moselle. With its two lanes, including the single-track tram connection, it flowed into narrow old town districts and streets on the Lützel side, but especially on the Koblenz side. In the long run, it was no longer able to cope with the growing volume of traffic . The increasing use of motor vehicles, but also better traffic routes on the left bank of the Rhine, finally posed the question of an additional crossing of the Moselle by building a new bridge in the 1930s for the city of Koblenz. The upcoming decision was flanked by the planning considerations to bypass the city center with the former Kaiser-Wilhelm-Ring (Friedrich-Ebert-Ring) and the Kaiserin-Augusta-Ring (Moselring) and to use the old Balduin Bridge as an inner-city connection left.

The construction of the New Moselle Bridge planned by Franz Dischinger began in 1932 during the unemployment crisis of the 1930s; It was completed in 1934. It was built by the Moselbrücke consortium , consisting of Philipp Holzmann (lead manager), Heinrich Butzer, Dyckerhoff & Widmann and Grün & Bilfinger . The construction costs amounted to 3 million RM . The inauguration and handover by Lord Mayor Otto Wittgen took place on April 22, 1934 under the name Adolf-Hitler-Brücke . After the end of the Second World War, it was only called the New Moselle Bridge .

construction

The new structure consisted of the river bridge and a frame bridge on the left and an earth dam on the right bank of the Moselle. The total of 18.2 m wide bridge had a 12.0 m wide carriageway and 3.0 m wide sidewalks. The Moselle was spanned with three openings at an oblique angle to the river axis. The openings of the three- hinged arch bridge made of reinforced concrete had clear widths between the pillars of 100.00 + 105.00 + 118.63 m, making the structure one of the most spanning concrete arch bridges in Germany. With an arrow ratio (ratio of arrow height to span) of up to 13.18, the arches were characterized by a very large flatness. The lower arch joints were supported on vaulted necks, which cantilevered about 5 m from the abutments and pillars (on the right abutment: 6.63 to 7.28 m). The joint spans were 90.00 + 95.00 + 107.00 m. The joints were made of cast steel.

The bridge openings were spanned with two parallel, 6.6 m wide arches spaced 1.9 m apart. In the left and middle openings they were massive arches, in the right arch they had a two-cell hollow cross - section with a maximum height of 2.57 m. This almost compensated for the vaulting of the unevenly wide openings. Due to the inclined angle of the bridge to the river axis, the approaches of the arches to the abutments and pillars also had inclined angles. The roadway was elevated at a distance of 4.3 m to about half the length of the arch. The bridge piers were founded with caissons at a maximum depth of 8.0 m below the river bed. Around 20,000 m³ of concrete and 1,450 t of reinforcing iron were used.

New Moselle Bridge (1954)

Like all Koblenz bridges, the New Moselle Bridge was blown up by German troops on March 7, 1945. The war damage was very great. In the spring of 1949 the Balduin Bridge was restored and passable. In 1951, the city of had Dyckerhoff & Widmann one of Ulrich Finsterwalder received preliminary created, the one of the world's first pre-stressed concrete bridges envisaged that the cantilever should be established. After a subsequent tender, the city decided on Finsterwalder's design. A consortium of the five companies offering the project was commissioned with the execution .

On August 1, 1952, work began on rebuilding the second Moselle bridge, which was completed after a two-year construction period. The cost of the reconstruction was borne almost equally by the state and the federal government.

construction

The bridge is 359.39 m long, calculated from the frame structure on the left to the embankment on the right side of the Moselle. It is 20 m wide between the railings and was then divided into a 13 m wide carriageway and 1.5 m each for the two-sided bike paths and 2.0 m for the sidewalks. The piers were built on the foundations of the previous bridge, resulting in pillar spacing of 101.47 + 113.90 + 122.85 m. The prestressed girder bridge has two each 4.52 m wide box girders m at a distance of 5.50. The slab is consistently 30 cm thick. The longitudinal girders of the box girders have a variable construction height that decreases from 7.00 m at the pillars to 2.50 m at the joint joints in the middle of the field. The thickness of the floor slabs decrease from 80 cm on the central pillars (120 cm on the right side beam) to 12 cm at the joint joints. Behind the bank pillars, hollow boxes filled with lean concrete serve as a counterweight to the cantilever arms.

The preparation took place in the cantilever . Numerous visitors from all over the world followed the construction progress.

Extension of the same bridge (1974)

In 1965 a traffic volume of around 37,000 cars per day was determined for the New Moselle Bridge. After the final completion of the B 9, around 65,000 cars were expected. Due to this expected development, the city council decided in 1967, in connection with the redesign of the traffic junctions north and south of the bridge, to plan to widen the bridge from four to eight Lane. This was preceded by the generous expansion of the bridgeheads Langemarckplatz and Saarplatz at the end of the 1960s.

The laying of the foundation stone for the widening of the New Moselle Bridge took place on November 9, 1972 on the Lützel side. The document capsule was let into the dividing pillar. It is framed by two basalt corner stones from the historic Balduin Bridge. On the Koblenz side, too, the old bridge stone was re-erected at the bridgehead, at the eastern staircase leading to the bank of the Moselle. The inscription shows the dates of the construction (1932–1934), the destruction (1945), the reconstruction (1952–1954) and the widening of the bridge (1972–1974). The widened New Moselle Bridge was opened to traffic on December 17, 1974. The cost of the extension amounted to around 30 million marks, of which the city took over 13 million.

The second bridge was built in the same form on the eastern side of the existing bridge. The extension has spans of 105 m, 112 m and 128 m and has no articulation joints. The length of the bridge is around 400 m with the abutments , followed by 180 m as a parallel beam bridge in the Lützel foreland area with a turn of around 80 m in the direction of Metternich ( B 416 ). The eight lanes are 3.25 m wide and the walkways on both sides are 2.50 m wide. The total width of the New Moselle Bridge is 37.60 m today.

Most noticeably, the bridge relieves inner-city traffic. In addition, it is also important for national traffic, as seven federal highways meet in Koblenz and the Moselle crossing was a particular bottleneck in the course of the B 9.

A third Moselle bridge, the Kurt Schumacher Bridge between Metternich and Moselweiß , was completed as early as 1990 , as the volume of traffic on the New Moselle Bridge had become too high.

Europabrücke, behind it the last Moselle barrage
Moselle bridges in Koblenz
The Europabrücke, on the left the bridge from the 1970s, on the right the bridge from the 1950s
Aerial view of the Europabrücke (3rd bridge from above)

Renaming to Europabrücke (1991)

On October 7, 1991, following a proposal by the Koblenz City Council and with the consent of the Federal Ministry of Transport as the responsible authority for the German federal highways , the bridge was named Europabrücke . Since its reconstruction in 1952, it has only had the simple name Neue Moselbrücke . This name was no longer appropriate with the construction of another newer Moselle bridge, the Kurt Schumacher Bridge . The southern bridge in Koblenz was originally supposed to be named Europabrücke in 1974 , but the state government did not approve of this naming at the time.

Bridge damage

Construction work on the Europabrücke due to bridge damage 02/2011

Investigations in 2009 revealed severe damage to the older part of the Europabrücke. Due to the high load, 100,000 vehicles cross the bridge every day, and the progressive damage, parts of the western part of the bridge leading into the city had to be closed to traffic in March 2010 to prevent further damage to the concrete . For this reason, the speed limit has been reduced from the previous 70 km / h to 50 km / h.

Investigations in April 2010 on the bridge on the upstream side revealed further serious damage caused by the harsh winter. The responsible administration has decided to close the bridge to all heavy traffic with a permissible total weight of more than 3.5 tons in the direction of travel towards the city. This block came into force at the end of May 2010.

In August 2010, extensive renovation work began on the bridge leading into the city. The speed limit was further reduced to 30 km / h and the width of the two lanes was reduced to a minimum. In December 2010 it became known that increasing damage was being found on this part of the bridge. The reason for the damage is not just the frost: the use of prestressed concrete was still new in the 1950s and the designers had no idea at the time how much traffic the bridge would one day carry. The traffic load therefore had to be further reduced significantly. From December 17, 2010 to mid-January 2011, traffic into the city was therefore also routed over the other half of the bridge leading out of the city. As a result, only four lanes were available in both directions, which dramatically worsened the traffic situation in Koblenz.

The renovation of the main artery of traffic in Koblenz was completed on March 29, 2011, shortly before the start of the 2011 Federal Garden Show . However, the partial bridge remained closed to trucks and buses over 3.5 tons even afterwards. On May 8, 2012, the foreland bridge on the side of the bridge in Lützel that leads into the city received new auxiliary supports in the form of steel girders. This part of the bridge, which dates back to the 1930s, was temporarily stabilized, but a complete renovation could not be avoided.

On December 3, 2012, the driving ban for vehicles over 3.5 tons was lifted for a test period of 3 months. One would like to determine the load on the bridge with real measurements in order to plan the further procedure with the data obtained from them. Since March 5, 2013, the driving ban for vehicles over 3.5 tons has come into force again. During the test period "around 100 million individual data" were recorded.

The Lützel foreland bridge was then completely renewed between April 2014 and June 2016, including the foundation with large bored piles. It was opened to traffic again on June 13, 2016.

literature

Koblenz city of bridges. Documentation for the inauguration of the Koblenz Balduin Bridge. Koblenz: City of Koblenz 1975 (Documentations of the City of Koblenz, 4).
Hans Bellinghausen , Ernst Bitzegeio, Ulrich Finsterwalder : New Moselle Bridge Koblenz. Commemorative publication for the inauguration and handover of the New Moselle Bridge Koblenz on July 24, 1954 (extended special print from Der Bauingenieur , Volume 29, 1954, Issue 8), Springer-Verlag, Berlin / Heidelberg 1954, ISBN 3-540-01833-6 ( limited preview in Google Book Search)
Ernst Bitzegeio: The New Moselle Bridge, its traffic problems then and now. In: Der Bauingenieur , year 29, 1954, issue 8, pp. 273–277
Ulrich Finsterwalder, George Knittel: The New Moselle Bridge in Koblenz. Design and calculation: In: Der Bauingenieur , Volume 29, 1954, Issue 8, pp. 278–294
Karlheinz Gries; Hans Schwarzer: The construction of the "New Moselle Bridge Koblenz". In: Der Bauingenieur , year 29, 1954, issue 8, pp. 295–304
Gerd Lohmer: The architectural design of the New Moselle Bridge Koblenz. In: Der Bauingenieur , year 29, 1954, issue 8, p. 305
Franz Dischinger: The second fixed road bridge over the Moselle near Koblenz, called the Adolf Hitler Bridge. In: Die Bautechnik , 1934, issue 12, pp. 130-134; Issue 15, pp. 199-204; Issue 19, pp. 246-248; Issue 23, pp. 286-291; Issue 36, pp. 460-463; No. 41, pp. 554-556; Issue 45, pp. 593-595.
Adolf Hitler Bridge, Koblenz. Second fixed road bridge over the Moselle. Wilhelm Ernst & Son, Berlin 1934.

Web links

Commons : Europabrücke Koblenz - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Europabrücke (Koblenz). In: Structurae
The Europabrücke at brueckenweb.de
Photo of the cantilever from 1953 from the media archive of the BAW Federal Institute for Hydraulic Engineering
Photo of the cantilever from 1953 ditto
Photo of the cantilever from 1953 ditto

Individual evidence

^ ^A ^b Franz Dischinger: The second fixed road bridge over the Moselle near Koblenz, called the Adolf Hitler Bridge.

^ Roland May, Werner Lorenz: Franz Dischinger - visionary of bridge construction. P. 14 (PDF; 5.5 MB)

^ Alfred Mehmel: The Adolf Hitler Bridge over the Moselle near Koblenz. In: The civil engineer. 15th year, 1934, pp. 384–389.

↑ ^a ^b Ernst Bitzegeio: The New Moselle Bridge, its traffic problems then and now. In: Der Bauingenieur , year 29, 1954, issue 8, pp. 273–277

↑ The consortium consisted of Dywidag , Grün & Bilfinger , Philipp Holzmann , Wayss & Freytag and H.Butzer.

↑ See Hans Bellinghausen: Koblenz Rhine and Moselle bridges in the past and present. In: Neue Moselbrücke Koblenz , p. 14. Bellinghausen specifies a three-year construction period on the grounds that the lack of steel would have delayed it by 18 months.

↑ Ulrich Finsterwalder, George Knittel: The New Moselle Bridge in Koblenz. Design and calculation: In: Der Bauingenieur , Volume 29, 1954, Issue 8, pp. 278–294