PORR to build two tunnels for Stuttgart 21

Deutsche Bahn awarded the first tunnelling contracts on 30 July 2011 for Stuttgart 21 to a joint venture lead by the PORR Group. After considering all competitive factors that joint venture was chosen out of four building consortiums bid for the European-wide tender. With tender packages PFA 1.2. and PFA 1.6a (Filder Tunnel and Ober-/Untertürkheim Tunnels) now having been awarded around a quarter of the tenders for this railway project have been completed. Deutsche Bahn claims to still be within the planned budget.

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Construction and finance contract for the new trunk line in Munich

Representatives of the Bavarian state government and German Railways DB AG signed the construction and finance contract for the second S-Bahn urban railway trunk line in Munich on 8 April 2011. The contract regulates the details of the financing of the project to build the second trunk line.

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Wind power plants: Planning procedure using the example of a system with savonius rotor

Download the article from Bautechnik 05/2011.

Christoph A. Beecken, Björn Knull

Wind energy gained in importance for electric power supply due to financial incentives for wind turbine generators (WTG) as politically favoured renewable energy source and the resulting technical further development. Building a relevant landscape element, the approvability of the structure plays a decisive role in planning and design of WTG.

Editorial: Geomechanics and Tunnelling 3/2011

Wulf Schubert

Tunnelling in weak ground and with high overburden is a particular challenge. The problems start with the investigation, as it is definitely no easy task to establish a realistic geological model from the scarce information available.

Experience of tunnel construction in weak ground

Download the article from Geomechanics and Tunnelling 03/2011.

Wulf Schubert

A whole range of problems are generally associated with the construction of tunnels in weak ground and under high overburden. Among those are large displacements, wide variation of stresses and strains, and sudden water ingress, to name just a few.

External doubleleaf masonry walls - Effects of the thermal insulation on fire protection

Download the article from Mauerwerk 03/2011.

Christiane Hahn

The thickness of the insulation in cavities increases due to thermal requirements. Combustible insulation materials are widely used. Information about the fire behavior of that type of construction (especially flame transfer through the cavity) was not available.

DIN 4102-4 - Eurocodes: The future of fire protection

Download the article from Mauerwerk 03/2011.

Christiane Hahn

So far, DIN 4102-4 was the practice manual for fire protection for the assessment of building materials and products in Germany. Because of the Eurocodes for structural components, the policy is that in each Part -1-2 the design in case of fire will be done, there is some parallel schemes and new design procedures. DIN 4102-4 had to be revised.

Geotechnical performance of a novel gravity base type shallow foundation for offshore wind turbines

Download the article from geotechnik 02/2011.

Hendrik Sturm

This paper presents a novel foundation solution specially developed for offshore wind turbines installed on sandy or stiff soils. It is a pre-fabricated cross-shaped structure which rests on the seabed through four skirted plates.