PASCHAL supported the construction of an inner city bridge in St. Augustin with formwork and shoring system know-how

In order to be able to allow the inner city traffic in St. Augustin to flow better, an inconvenient railway crossing was replaced by an underpass for the 66 city rail line. A crossing underneath the city rail line was used. A further increase in the level of private traffic was expected with the revival of the "Huma" shopping centre.

The complete bridge structure was built alongside the train tracks of the city rail line.
Both the front side of the underpass and the retaining walls were built with the LOGO.3 wall formwork system.
On site, the formworks were covered differently to create the desired look for the concrete surface.

The Allround shoring system TG60 was used to carry the temporary loads that had to be transferred into the ground during the concreting of the slab.

Inter-disciplinary construction planning reduced the stoppages of the city rail line to a minimum

To ensure that the interruption of the important rail connection between Siegburg and Bonn was for just a short period, the bridge construction was constructed in an almost complete manner "next to" its future location as a reinforced concrete structure.
The engineering construction was built by STRABAG AG, the department: Hesse/Rhineland-Palatinate/Saarland, group: special constructions.
Guido Bender, the Construction Manager responsible, selected PASCHAL as the partner for the areas of formwork and load carrying during construction phase. He has known PASCHAL's systems for decades and is very satisfied with the collaboration. The construction work began start of August 2016 and the concreting work on the reinforced concrete slab took place on the 30th September 2016. The overall bridge construction consists of two bridges that can only be considered as two structures due to a joint. One bridge will later on carry the train tracks, the other bridge is separated into a cycle path and a footpath.

Cooperative partnership

As so many times during construction, there were also additional challenges in this project during the underground work. Despite the fixed deadline for the structure’s relocation and the commissioning of the underpass, there was no hectic pace among the construction personnel. The "construction acceleration" was approved by the customer. STRABAG reacted with an increase in staff with their own skilled construction workers and reinforced concrete workers and PASCHAL reacted with prompt delivery of additional formwork and shoring systems. The work could be carried out quickly and in parallel due to the detailed work planning from STRABAG and the formwork planning from PASCHAL.
This interaction was the only method to speed up the construction work. The concrete setting process could not be accelerated, as the concrete construction was to be created as stress-free as possible. Therefore, a special slow setting concrete of the C40 class was used and the hardening process was monitored digitally.

Convincing reference projects

As the customer and the consulting engineering firm had also placed detailed requirements for the surface design of the concrete construction, the formwork design had to be presented in advance on the basis of completed projects, which was no difficulty for PASCHAL. The company has more than 50 years of know-how and hence has a large number of national and international reference objects. Various component surface appearances were desired, from a standard concrete to a smooth fair-faced concrete. Therefore, the LOGO.3 wall formwork system was covered with an additional layer on site depending on the part of construction.

Movable bridge as a framework

In order to be able to move the entire bridge construction, it had to be lifted hydraulically by approximately 30 cm and then moved 22.00 m in 5 hours using cable pulling engineering to its final position. In preparation of the construction, all concerns were coordinated between the construction personnel, the engineering firm, the construction company, the logistics company and the formwork planning.
To enable the relocation, a strip foundation was built as an "auxiliary foundation" underneath the actual foundation. A double T beam was positioned on top for the "relocation".
The actual bridge foundation was built using the Modular universal formwork due to the complex geometries. Around 100 sqm of Modular universal formwork was delivered to the construction site at Bonnerstrasse in St. Augustin for this purpose.
For safety reasons, both bridge foundations were connected using friction locking with 3 tie beams, to avoid any cracking during lifting. These auxiliary constructions were also formed using the Modular universal formwork.

Around 500 sqm of LOGO.3 formwork system of graduated element height was used for the formwork for the 4 retaining walls. The slab edge formwork was used for the design of the stop ends and was partially combined with around 20 linear metres of climbing brackets.

To carry safely the temporary loads during the concreting of the slab, the Allround shoring system TG60 was used for a surface area of approximately 185 sqm.