In Wol­gast, in Wes­tern Pome­ra­nia, Fede­ral High­way B 111 leads to the Bal­tic Sea island of Use­dom. Curr­ently, traf­fic there cros­ses via a bas­cule bridge that opens seve­ral times a day to allow ships to pass. This regu­larly inter­rupts road traffic—resulting in cor­re­spon­din­gly heavy traf­fic con­ges­tion in Wol­gast. The new bypass, fea­turing the New Peene Bridge, is set to change that in the future. With a cle­arance height of 42 meters, ship and road traf­fic will be able to move inde­pendently of one another.

The bridge is 1.5 km long and con­sists of 18 spans con­s­truc­ted using a steel-con­crete com­po­site design. It spans 252 meters across the Pee­ne­strom bet­ween two pylons. The pro­ject owner is the Schwe­rin Road Con­s­truc­tion Aut­ho­rity, acting on behalf of the state of Meck­len­burg-Wes­tern Pome­ra­nia. AUGUST REINERS is car­ry­ing out the rein­forced con­crete work on the main­land and on the Use­dom side on behalf of Imp­le­nia. This includes the two abut­ments at axes 10 and 190 and the four piers at axes 20 through 50.

We have now rea­ched our first major mile­stone: The abut­ment at Axis 10 has been com­ple­ted in pre­pa­ra­tion for the steel con­s­truc­tion and bridge advance­ment. This cle­ars the way on the main­land side for the assem­bly of the steel superstructure.

The piers are also visi­bly rising. The first sec­tions have been pou­red with con­crete, and the clim­bing form­work is now moving upward sec­tion by sec­tion. Each time, the form­work and work plat­forms are moved up to the com­ple­ted sec­tion of the pier. This allows work to be car­ried out safely from the ground, even at great heights, wit­hout the need for scaf­fol­ding. The pier’s geo­me­try poses a par­ti­cu­lar chall­enge: the groove, which mea­su­res 4 × 5 meters in cross-sec­tion, widens toward the top and is for­med using struc­tu­ral formwork.

The next important step fol­lo­wing the abut­ment will take place later this month: With the com­ple­tion of the pier head, Pier 20 will be han­ded over to the steel con­s­truc­tion team. This will allow the sli­ding of the steel super­s­truc­ture to continue.