Zschopau valley crossing

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Zschopau valley crossing of the federal highway 174 near Chemnitz (Saxony) is 408 meters long and one of the most important valley crossings in Eastern Germany. The bridge was built in 1994-97 as the centerpiece of the 7 km long bypass from Zschopau - Gornau and significantly shortened travel times to the Czech border.

The four-lane expansion was made in view of the EU enlargement in 2004 . The opening of the Reitzenhain border crossing to truck traffic actually resulted in a significant increase in the volume of traffic and confirmed the need to re-route this main connection to the Ore Mountains , which with the extension of the Südring in Chemnitz also received a connection to the federal highway 72 .

Construction

The 28 m wide structure, which is very demanding due to the topographical conditions, has a total span of 407.7 m, a main opening of 121 m and a longitudinal gradient of 6 percent. The bridge dominating the valley runs 37 m above the terrain and also crosses a 23 m thick garbage dump , which had to be taken into account in the foundation by means of bored pile foundations . The construction of the Schwarztalbrücke was similarly difficult despite its shorter length.

The main structure was produced in cantilevered cantilever construction (protrusion up to 5 meters) and the concrete was pre-tensioned using the Dywidag strand tensioning method. The standard cross-section is formed by two longitudinally separated prestressed concrete box girders for the Chemnitz and Zschopau carriageways. The bridge piers, up to 50 m high (cross-section 2 x 7.5 x 1.5 m each), were erected using a 4-meter climbing method : the pillar tables measure 8 meters. Massive retaining walls were required in the river area. The construction costs of the bridge, which opened in 1997, were around 30 million DM.

A route steeped in history

The B174 essentially follows an old trade route that connected the Leipzig area with Prague via the Ore Mountains and also touched Bohemian and German mining towns (including silver mining ). Wildeck Castle has secured the important ford across the Zschopau since around 1100 and the associated right of escort since 1516 . Even while the wooden structure was being replaced by a stone bridge around 1813, some coalition armies of the Napoleonic Wars were approaching . In the run-up to the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig , 14,000 teams of the Allied Austrian, Russian and Prussian armies passed this bridge.

The Chemnitz – Prague post office route was set up 100 years earlier and was soon marked with Saxony's mile pillars , three of which have survived (one near the new bridge). Around 1800 the route was expanded to the Chaussee due to increasing industrialization and extended in 1939 as Reichsstraße 174 via Komotau to Prague. The Reitzenhain border crossing was closed in 1945 by the CSSR. Before reopening in 1978, the line in the Tischau valley up to and including Hohndorf was expanded to three lanes from 1976 .

swell

  • Thomas Siegert: New construction of the Zschopau viaduct in cantilever . Proceedings 6th Dresden Bridge Construction Symposium VI - Proceedings, TU Dresden 1996 [1] (PDF; 651 kB)
  • Bundesstrasse 174 and Zschopau