Torsion beams are – as used in the construction project Friedberg-Bad Nauheim – steel constructions that are used to bridge obstacles (e.g., railway overpass, pedestrian underpass, buildings) that have a gap of more than 5 metres between two ramming pipes. Torsion beams are also inserted in front of railway bridges in order to prevent load influences from sound insulation barriers from entering existing bridge structures.
With two cranes from the Hering fleet (a 50- and a 125-tonne crane) a total of 5 torsion beams (length of 10-26 metres; individual weight of 5-15 tonnes) were inserted and assembled in order to subsequently install the Hering sound insulation barriers onto the beams.
By order of DB Netz AG, Large-scale Projects West, noise barriers from Hering were inserted along the route 3900. Construction work began in June 2018 and is scheduled for completion in Spring 2019. In an overnight shift from 26-27 January 2019, the sound barrier professionals from Hering Bau GmbH & Co. KG as well as the crane team from Hering Bahnbau GmbH arrived in order to manoeuvre the enormous torsion beams into the desired position.
The five torsions beams were delivered in advance to the storage facility “Alter Güterbahnhof” in Friedberg/Hesse. From there, two rail cranes transported the torsion beam EÜ Benekestraße along the rail route to the installation location in wall 1.
During this process, the Bad Nauheim railway station was passed through. The track cranes transported the beam to the installation location. Subsequently, the crane picked the beam up in order to put it into the prepared ramming pipes. The second crane drove back to the storage facility at the Friedberg freight depot. In the meantime, the torsion beams of noise wall 2 were loaded into the railcar with the help of a truck crane.
The truck crane transported the torsion beams with railcars to wall 2. There, the beams were lifted into the ramming pipes, aligned, wedged and embedded in concrete.
Photos: Christian Bedeschinski