Reichenbach Viaduct

Coordinates: 50 ° 43 ′ 8 ″  N , 10 ° 52 ′ 12 ″  E

Reichenbach Viaduct
Convicted	Federal motorway 71
Subjugated	Landesstrasse 3004 (old B 4 ), Forststrasse, Reichenbach , Landesstrasse 2899, Erfurt – Ilmenau railway line
place	Geraberg , Elgersburg , Martinroda
construction	Steel composite box girder bridge
overall length	1000 m
width	28.5 m
Longest span	105 m
Construction height	3.7 m to 6.5 m
height	60 m
building-costs	59 million DM
start of building	2000
completion	2002
location

The viaduct Reichenbach is 1000 m length after the viaduct Werratal second longest bridge the Bundesautobahn 71 . It is one of the first large bridges in Germany to have a one-piece composite cross - section consisting of a single-cell steel box girder and a reinforced concrete deck.

The bridge is located in the Thuringian Forest between the Ilmenau- West and Graefenroda junctions and spans the Reichenbach valley at a maximum height of around 60 m at Geraberg , Elgersburg and Martinroda with the federal highway 4 , the highway 2899 (Martinroda-Geraberg) and the railway line Erfurt – Ilmenau . The bridge was built from 1999 to 2002 at a cost of 59 million DM.

Substructures

The abutments and the first two eastern pillars next to the B 4 have a flat foundation. The following three pillars are founded on eight large bored piles each with a diameter of 1.50 m and a maximum length of 40 m. For the eight remaining piers, a combined pile and plate foundation was implemented for the first time in Germany in the construction of large bridges , which enabled the pile length to be shortened to 15 m. A total of 1,460 m of bored piles were installed. The rectangular reinforced concrete pillars are hollow and accessible up to the bridge superstructure. The smallest external dimensions below the pier head are 6.6 m × 2.2 m, with a wall thickness of 45 cm.

superstructure

The spans of the 14-field superstructure are 40 m + 50 m + 55 m + 65 m + 75 m + 80 m + 95 m + 105 m + 95 m + 80 m + 75 m + 70 m + 65 m + 50 m. The five middle bridge fields with spans above 75 m are haunched over four supports and have a maximum cross-sectional height of 6.5 m. The shorter fields have a constant overall height of 3.7 m.

The one-piece superstructure of the composite steel bridge has a single-cell open steel trough and a 28.5 m wide reinforced concrete deck connected with headed dowels . The bottom plate of the box cross-section is 8.5 m wide, the webs of the main girders are inclined and support the deck at a distance of 10 m. In addition, the deck is supported on the outside by diagonal struts approximately every 5 m. The rest point in the longitudinal direction is in the middle of the bridge, where the four pillars are immovably connected to the superstructure.

execution

The steel superstructures of the edge fields were prefabricated on both abutments and pushed in over the supporting pillars in sections using the incremental launching method . The middle fields with the haunched cross-sections were assembled and lifted on site. This was done in two stages. First, about 20 m long basic segments were lifted onto the pillars with a crawler crane . Then the intermediate pieces of the steel superstructure with a maximum mass of 650 tons were lifted from the basic elements with strand jacks. Finally, the reinforced concrete deck slab was produced in sections with two formwork carriages .

traffic

The Reichenbach viaduct is in a very exposed valley location. Therefore, despite the highway speed limit and are on the bridge since the opening drogues have several truck or trailer which has (in each case without charge) knocked down by strong wind gusts.

In the event of a storm , the autobahn between the Ilmenau-West and Gräfenroda exits has been closed since the beginning of 2007 to prevent trucks from falling off the bridge. The subsequent construction of windbreak walls with the required height for trucks is not possible for static reasons. In the summer of 2009, the bridge railings were replaced by a 2.5 meter high wall with plexiglass slats to protect the wind from the wind .

overall view

literature

• Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Housing: Bridges and tunnels on federal highways 2004 . Deutscher Bundes-Verlag, Berlin (Germany). ISBN 3-935064-28-4

Web links

Commons : Talbrücke Reichenbach  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Reichenbach Viaduct. In: Structurae
• Reichenbach Viaduct

Individual evidence

1. ↑ A-71 bridge now gets a windbreak . In: Free Word , May 7, 2009 ( Memento of August 9, 2010 in the Internet Archive )