Mobile Cranes Enable Efficient Use of a Small Footprint on Iconic Project

Just outside Horb am Neckar, a town in the southwest of the German state of Baden-Württemberg, contractors are constructing a new 1.3-mile highway bypass project that will span the 70 meter (230 feet) deep Necker River valley. The bypass will relieve Horb’s city center from heavy traffic when completed by connecting two state highways.

The bypass project’s centerpiece is the Horb High Bridge. At its height of 667 m (2189 feet), the bridge is impressive. The superstructure will be designed as a haunched continuous girder and will be braced at each of the three center piers with five stay cables. The bridge cross section is a two-span slab girder in reinforced concrete and above the edge piers in prestressed concrete.

The design and construction teams faced challenges in erecting an iconic structure on a small construction footprint without disrupting the local community. The staging area is in the Neckar floodplains. The bridge crosses two railway lines, a major highway and the supra-regional Neckar cycle path. To learn more about the overall project, visit the Horb High Bridge Website.

PORR, an Austrian full-service engineering and construction firm, was commissioned to design/build the project. It leveraged its more than 150 years of experience to develop a modular approach that minimized ecologic and community impact. PORR Structural Engineering is responsible for the overall project, while PORR Equipment Services provides tower cranes, equipment, containers and media installations. Meanwhile, PORR Steel and Systems Construction is responsible for the production, delivery and partial assembly of steel components for the bridge superstructure as well as the cable anchorages.

One critical element of the operational plan was the selection of the crane machinery. PORR worked with Wolffkran, an Austrian crane manufacturer, to develop an innovative approach for an efficient critical path for the project.  To read a press release about how Wolffkran aided the contractors in setting up for this iconic project, click here.