2602x
001203
2021-05-12

Canal Bridge Structure over Ems River No. 911 N – Bypass, Germany

The Ems Canal Bridge (KBr), built in the 1930s, will be renovated at DEK-km 78.806N as part of the German Dortmund-Ems Canal (DEK) expansion effort. A double half-through bridge is planned for the new structure, where construction will begin while the shipment is in progress.

At the beginning of the renovation, a bypass route will be constructed: The longitudinal insertion of the half-through bridge into the bypass location took place in October 2020. The bridge will be moved to its final position after the second section is complete.

Dlubal's customer Meyer+Schubart from Wunstorf (Germany) provided the structural design as well as the superstructure execution planning. The entire steel superstructure was modeled and designed as a 3D model in RFEM, using planar shell elements.

Structure

The half-through bridge spans 205 ft with a total width of 118 ft. It is supported on 108-foot-wide, 22-foot-thick and 18-foot-high abutments. Three spherical supports are provided for each support. In the water-filled operating state, support forces of up to 7,870 kips act on the outer supports.

Between the tail units, the navigable width is 85 ft and the hydraulic width is 92 ft. On the sides (top of the barrier walls) are 16-foot-wide (east side) and 10-foot-wide (west side) service paths. The bridge bottom forms the bottom chord and the service paths form the cross-section top chord for the structural design.

For the design of the canal bridge, variable actions such as hydrostatic + hydrodynamic actions, ice load + ice pressure, temperature, as well as extraordinary actions such as disaster vessel impact (vessel impact with a 6° approach angle), and a sunken vessel load were applied. The structure is designed for 100 years of service life, according to Eurocode.


Literature

[1] Erbing, V.; Schneider, N.; Bölling, D. (2020) Neubau der Kanalbrücke Ems – 2 110 Tonnen Stahl über der Ems. Stahlbau 89, Issue 5, pp. 439-447. https://doi.org/10.1002/stab.202000007
Location
Fuestruper Straße
48268 Greven


Project Specifications

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