4642x
001095
2017-08-23

Lookout Tower in Bad Wildbad, Germany

The lookout tower, with a height of about 131 ft, is the highlight of the treetop trail on Sommerberg Hill in Bad Wildbad, Germany. The viewing platform on the top of the tower offers a remarkable view over the densely wooded Central/North Schwarzwald Nature Park.

WIEHAG GmbH from Altheim, Austria, a customer of Dlubal Software, was responsible for the planning, structural analysis, and design, fabrication, and assembly of the tower. Structural calculations were performed in RSTAB.

Structure

The shape of the lookout tower resembles a beaker. The structure consists of an outer ring made of 12 double inclined glued-laminated timber beams. They are rotationally symmetrically arranged at the same distance from one another.

12 main supports are inclined about 7.7 degrees from the center point and tilted about 9.4 degrees counterclockwise. Thus, the tower looks like a slightly inclined and twisted beaker.

The tower can be accessed at the height of 16.4 ft from the treetop trail, which winds through the tree tops with a total length of approximately 4,101 ft at a height of up to 65.6 ft.

You can climb up to the viewing platform on a helical structure made of wood. It is attached to the timber supports by steel cantilever beams. Between the individual cantilever beams, there are timber stringers covered with a wooden floor.

On the top of the tower, there is a viewing platform made of steel. The platform consists of steel cantilever beams, protruding to the outside and connected to the timber columns. On the cantilever beams, there are again timber stringers covered with wooden planks.

The structure is stiffened by a circumferential web made of steel diagonals and ring structures.



Project Specifications

Model data

Number of Nodes 1078
Number of Members 1751
Number of Load Cases 22
Number of Load Combinations 200
Number of Result Combinations 11
Dimensions 131.7 x 131.7 x 134.85 feet
Program Version 8.09.01

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