On 11 December the new high-speed railway line Wendlingen - Ulm was opened to traffic.

The Filstal Viaduct is part of the Albaufstieg project section of the new high-speed railway line Wendlingen – Ulm, and its tunnel-bridge-tunnel sequence within the existing topography and the Filstal’s steep valley slopes presented the project participants with special conditions that had to be taken into account in the bridge design as well as during construction work.

The adjoining tunnels with 30-meter track spacing required two independent bridge structures. Therefore, two single-tracked bridge structures were designed as jointless continuous girders with a length of 485 m and 472 m respectively, running over six spans and built as semi-integral structures. In the area of the Y-shaped main piers, the haunch is designed in a dissolved form with shallow inclined struts. The superstructure is a single-cell box girder section prestressed in longitudinal direction and mildly reinforced in transverse direction.

A major challenge for design and construction of the semi-integral structure with its slender piers was, among other things, the design of the monolithic connections and the longitudinal force transfer due to breaking loads.

The selected construction method envisaged to initially build the superstructure in sections with top-running launching truss on auxiliary towers for temporary support during construction. After completion of the superstructure, the inclined piers were concreted underneath on a suspended scaffolding, and self-compacting concrete (SCC) was used at the superstructure connection. The total tonnage of the auxiliary construction structures amounted to approx. 3500 tonnes per bridge.

The third-highest railway bridge in Germany crosses the Filstal valley at a clear height of 75 m.

 

Client

Deutsche Bahn AG
DB Projekt Stuttgart - Ulm GmbH

Design
Leonhardt, Andrä und Partner Beratende Ingenieure VBI AG

Phtoto
Deutsche Bahn AG, Arnim Kilgus

Link to Project Details

Link to Stuttgart 21 Railway Project