Installation of the Schwelmetal bridge successfully started with moving traffic

Darmstadt/Wuppertal, January 29, 2020.

Since the beginning of January, the assembly of the steel structure for the replacement of the substructures 2 and 3 of the Schwelmetal Bridge built in 1960 in the course of the BAB A1 motorway has been in progress.

The Schwelmetal Bridge on the A1 motorway at the Wuppertal-Langerfeld junction spans several electrified railway tracks, public roads and waters. Up to 100,000 vehicles pass through the bridge every day. The two inner sections of the bridge, built in 1959 and 1960, are no longer sufficiently load-bearing due to the decades of stress and strain, especially due to increased heavy goods traffic.

The replacement construction of the bridge will be done “from the inside out”. This is the only way to maintain the traffic on the A1 motorway and on the DB AG track systems located underneath the bridge. The upper construction site on the A1 motorway has been set up as an island construction site.

The steel structure is being assembled using self-propelled transporters (SPMT).

Donges SteelTec has been commissioned with the fabrication and erection of the steel structure for the substructures 2 and 3 with a total span of 207m as well as the application of the corrosion protection.