Major pipe bridge project on the A42

At the end of June, an extraordinary project was successfully completed in many respects: the renewal of a pipe bridge on the A42 in Bottrop.

As part of the planned expansion of the A42 motorway to six lanes, an old concrete pipe bridge had to be replaced. The bridge carries utility lines from a local refinery to the Bottrop inland port. It spans both the River Emscher and the A42 motorway. Around Pentecost of this year, the time had finally come.

Within a ten-day full motorway closure, approximately 1,000 tonnes of concrete structures were dismantled and around 800 tonnes of steel structures were installed. One of the project highlights was the installation of two new pre-assembled pipe bridge segments, each measuring 71 meters in length and weighing 220 tonnes. In cooperation with WASEL, the segments were loaded onto barges at the manufacturer’s site in Meppen, Lower Saxony, via the local inland port and transported via Dutch and German waterways to the Bottrop port on the Rhine-Herne Canal, where they were unloaded.

A special handling area had been prepared in advance, from which two of WASEL’s 1,000-tonne LR 11000 crawler cranes could unload the bridge segments directly from the barges using a tandem lift with a large outreach. In the further course of the project, the bridges were then hoisted up to the A42 motorway and loaded onto self-propelled modular transporters (SPMTs).

The dismantling of the old concrete bridge segments—each weighing up to 240 tonnes—and the installation of the new segments was carried out using one of two 1,000-tonne crawler cranes. At the beginning of the motorway closure period, this crane was transported in individual components across the motorway and assembled at the construction site.

Additionally, a 450-tonne, two 250-tonne, and one 100-tonne telescopic mobile crane were deployed. A 200-tonne telescopic crawler crane was also in operation at the logistics and loading area.

A comprehensive assembly and logistics concept—developed over one and a half years and continuously adapted—ensured that all processes were executed safely and on schedule. This was a project that not only required the calculation of ambitious load cases, but also the coordination of approximately 1,500 vehicle movements.