immo!nvest – Die Plattform für Standorte und Immobilien

Tag: Brücke

  • When glacier sticks carry over a ton…

    When glacier sticks carry over a ton…

    A box of ice cream sticks, a tube of glue and creativity and intuition: that’s all it took to take part in Switzerland’s national bridge-building competition. The interest of the vocational schools from the three language regions was correspondingly great. The 64 participating trainees in the professions of draughtsmen and draughtswomen in the fields of civil engineering, geomatics, architecture, landscape architecture or spatial planning as well as carpenters constructed their bridge models in
    their free time and invested up to 100 hours in it. The competition is also increasingly popular with the FH students, who participated with eight teams and 21 participants. The bridge-building competition is organised by the VSS together with the engineering firm AJS.

    The presentation of the bridge models in the congress centre in Biel showed the whole range of creativity of the students: From elegant and light to massive and heavy, inspired by classical forms or simply springing from free imagination, meticulously worked out to the last detail or rather improvised. Jean-Marc Jeanneret, President of the organising Association of Swiss Road and Transport Professionals (VSS), was also pleased with the huge
    variety of the models presented. For him, this competition, which has been established in many countries for years, has another effect that should not be underestimated, especially in the digital age: “When you assemble the construction ‘by hand’, you understand it in the truest sense of the word. Weak points become more concretely apparent than with static calculations or 3D models on the computer. In this way, learners gain a lot of knowledge in a playful way, which they otherwise often have to painstakingly acquire
    . That’s why this competition is also a good introduction to professional life.”

    The highlight of the event was the resilience test, with which the most effective bridge was chosen. First crackling, then crashing and with much applause from the audience, the bridge models break on the test bench. The effectiveness of the bridge is rated according to the load-bearing capacity achieved in relation to its own weight. This evaluation formula rewards those who arrive at the most efficient solution with a minimum of material consumption – entirely in the spirit of a resource-efficient
    economy.

    As in the previous year, the team from the ZHAW Winterthur solved this task best among the students. Their bridge carried a load of an incredible 1060 kg! The three students Pascal Lämmler, Fabio Schäfer and Naatan Lohrer not only won a cheque for 1000 Swiss francs, they also won the “maximum load” category and set a new record. A team also dominated in the apprentice category: the Wetzikon Vocational School with Valentin Voll, Pascal Roffler and Denis Bilgin won both the “most effective bridge” and the “maximum load” category (773 kg).

  • Federal Roads Office uses mobile bridge

    Federal Roads Office uses mobile bridge

    The Federal Roads Office ( FEDRO ) has launched the FEDRO Bridge pilot project. According to a press release , this is a mobile bridge for use in maintenance work on motorways. The traffic is slowed down at 60 kilometers per hour over the almost 240 meter long bridge. Underneath there is a space of around 100 meters where work can be carried out undisturbed by road traffic. When the construction phase is finished, the mobile bridge is pushed a hundred meters further and the work continues.

    This eliminates the barriers and shutdowns of sections of the roadway that are otherwise necessary for occupational safety. You can also work unhindered during the day. With today's traffic volume on many sections of the motorway, it has not been possible to reduce lanes for maintenance work during the day for a long time, according to the statement from the Federal Office. Accordingly, more and more construction work on the national highways has to be carried out at night. ASTRA believes that lane reduction without traffic jams on the main axes such as A1 and A2 is only possible after 11 p.m. Because of the lower noise limits, some work such as noisy demolition is not possible at night.

    The Federal Office therefore decided to develop and build the ASTRA Bridge. In the fact sheet for the mobile bridge, the length is specified as exactly 236 meters, the width as 7.30 meters and the height as 4.32 meters. Underneath, it is possible to work on a hundred meters at a width of 5.2 meters and a height of 3.10 meters.

    The ASTRA Bridge is equipped with a landing gear. Raised hydraulically by 10 centimeters, it can travel lengthways and crossways. Once the work under the bridge has been completed, it will continue to drive 100 meters by remote control for the next construction phase, according to the fact sheet. To assemble the bridge before use, 18 low-loaders are required for transport and four cranes are required for assembly.

    According to the Federal Office, the individual elements for the ASTRA Bridge are currently being built and then transported to the bridge's storage area in Rothrist TG. The bridge is to be assembled and tested for the first time in late autumn. If these tests are satisfactory, the ASTRA Bridge will be used in spring 2022 as a pilot project for paving renovations on the A1 section between Recherswil SO and Kriegstetten SO. According to the press release, the ASTRA Bridge prototype will cost around CHF 20 million. After completion of a construction project and a maintenance phase, it can be used again for the next construction project.

  • Everything new in front of the Olten train station

    Everything new in front of the Olten train station

    Olten train station is one of the busiest train hubs in Switzerland. The square in front of it is an important traffic hub and has a high volume of car traffic, buses, pedestrians and bicycles. He is also an important figurehead for the city.

    The Bahnhofplatz is showing its age, however – it is becoming less and less able to meet the growing demands. Therefore, the project Neuer Bahnhofplatz Olten nbo provides for a comprehensive reorganization and redesign.

    The square and its adjacent streets should meet the various mobility needs of the city and region – with sufficient capacity for traffic, an expanded bus station, a large bicycle station, underground parking and separate areas for taxis, short-term parking and “kiss and ride”. A large roof following the platform will mark the entrance area to the train station and give it a new face.

    Continuous terraces on both sides of the station bridge should invite you to linger. A new footbridge is intended to act as a tension band bridge for pedestrians and bicycles, providing direct access from the left bank of the river to the train station and the new bicycle station. With the extension of the Hardegg pedestrian underpass, a new, direct access from the train station to the Aare area will be created.

    In 2012, the canton of Solothurn, the city of Olten and SBB Immobilien joined forces to form a builders' association. In 2019 they presented the project to the population as part of a public participation. The tender for the master builder work is to take place in 2024. The phased realization of the new station square with ongoing operations is planned for the period 2025 to 2028.

  • Concrete 3D printed bridge unveiled in Venice

    Concrete 3D printed bridge unveiled in Venice

    The Striatus arch bridge was unveiled on Monday at the Venice Architecture Biennale. It was designed by the Block Research Group at the Institute for Technology in Architecture of the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich ( ETH ), the Zaha Hadid Architecs Computation and Design Group and the Innsbruck specialists for additive manufacturing with concrete, incremetal3D . It was made possible by the building materials manufacturer Holcim Switzerland .

    Striatus is part of the “ Time Space Existence ” exhibition. It will be shown by the European Cultural Center as part of the Biennale. Its name (Latin: ribbed, grooved, striped) reflects the structural logic and the manufacturing process of the bridge, said Philippe Block from ETH in a press release from Holcim. “In arched and vaulted structures, the material is placed in such a way that the forces can be transferred to the supports in pure compression. The strength is generated by the geometry, whereby only a fraction of the materials are used that are used in conventional beams. ”This opens up a multitude of possibilities for building with lower strength and environmentally friendly.

    "Striatus stands on the shoulders of giants," says Shajay Bhooshan of Zaha Hadid Architects. “It revives ancient techniques of the past.” Its “tactile quality, aesthetics and strength” reflected the vision “that beauty is a promise of performance”. The joint work makes the striatus bridge "greater than the sum of its individual parts", says Johannes Megens, co-founder of incremental3D. According to Holcim CEO Jan Jenisch, the digital and circular design of the bridge uses "concrete at its best, with minimal use of materials and blocks that can be reassembled and reused infinitely".

    Holcim claims to be working on a range of 3D printing applications, from complex infrastructure to affordable housing for Africa. In Malawi, Holcim has put the world's first school made of 3D concrete printing into operation. The construction of the walls took only 18 hours and consumed 70 percent less material than with conventional construction methods.

  • Empa presents three innovation awards

    Empa presents three innovation awards

    The Eidgenössische Materialprüfungs- und Forschungsanstalt ( Empa ) has honored three of its groundbreaking projects and achievements with the Empa Innovation Award. The prize, endowed with CHF 5,000, has been awarded every two years since 2006. In doing so, Empa honors the efforts of its researchers to build further bridges between science and business with applied, market-oriented research.

    According to a press release by Empa, the first prize goes to the novel tissue adhesive technology Nanoglue. It was developed by researchers at the Particles-Biology Interactions Laboratory at Empa in St.Gallen in collaboration with the Nanoparticle Systems Engineering Lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich . Their radically new approach uses the wound-healing properties of inorganic nanoparticles. The inexpensive materials could be manufactured on a large scale. The “unique technology” is now being brought to market maturity by the Zurich start-up anavo medical , which has yet to be founded.

    The transparent face mask from the Hello Mask project by Empa and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne ( EPFL ) also received an award. It consists of a fine membrane with a pore size of around 100 nanometers. This membrane allows air to pass through, but holds back viruses and bacteria. “The fully see-through mask was developed primarily with the aim of improving the relationship between caregivers and patients,” says researcher Joshua Avossa. The Geneva start-up HMCare has been working on the market launch of the Hello Mask from Empa and EPFL since 2020. It should be available in mid-2021.

    The software platform Urban Sympheny for planning sustainable energy systems is the third winner. The Empa spin-off of the same name, based in Dübendorf, helps planners to identify optimal solutions for their location and their customers. The goal is energy and cost efficiency. The innovative platform was developed in Empa’s Urban Energy Systems department. Last year Venture Kick awarded Urban Sympheny 50,000 francs.