Attractive bridge piers

Standard and special formwork cleverly combined during a Hungarian project

The Hungarian subsidiary of the construction company STRABAG was primarily responsible for the construction of the new bridge. The international transport route will connect Budapest with Osijek in Croatia and enable a quick connection to the Adriatic coast. For the construction of this bridge structure, STRABAG Építő Kft. decided to use formwork and shoring tower systems that were planned and delivered by MEVA Hungary and significantly contributed to the timely progress of the construction work and to the achievement of the desired quality.

Challenging pier design
The formwork planning for the bridge piers, which stand next to each other in pairs, was one of the project’s challenges. This was due to their unique design with flat and variably curved surfaces as well as striking vertical grooves in the pier shafts. Moreover, high-quality surface finishes and a pleasing joint and tie hole pattern were required. Last but not least, the implementation of the formwork planning for the pier cross-section was made more difficult by the small radius on the narrow sides and the penetration surfaces. The planning engineers from MEVA Zsalurendszerek Zrt. correspondingly doubled up the facings on the pier shaft grooves. Lastly, panels from three MEVA standard systems were combined with each other as well as with special formwork panels and installed on-site: Radius circular formwork, Circo column formwork and Mammut 350 wall formwork.

Quick cycles up to a height of 7 m
Despite the custom-designed pier form, only a minimum quantity of tailor-made special formwork panels were required. The widespread use of standard MEVA formwork enabled rapid construction progress and simple and economical work processes. The formwork was thus quickly erected and the piers were already standing after a short period of time. As the first pouring stage was up to a height of 7 m, the construction of the up to 14 m high piers was completed in two cycles. Once the lower section had hardened, the quickly and easily assembled MT 60 shoring tower system was set up and working platforms installed so that the final height was completed comfortably and safely.

MEP is adapted to the piers
Now only the pier caps needed to be built. Their geometry is similar to the head of a hammer whose bottom surface takes on the elliptical shape of the pier. The MEP shoring tower system was the ideal solution here. It guarantees a high degree of stability even at large heights, and due to the flexibility of this system, it was possible to simply adapt the shoring towers to suit the small radius of the elliptical (instead of the usual horizontal) working plane and to the penetration surfaces.

The concrete was poured using special formwork panels that were also supplied by MEVA and could be reused multiple times in order to keep the costs as low as possible. The straightforward surfaces were poured using Mammut 350 wall formwork that convinced due to its high fresh-concrete pressure capacity of 100 kN/m².

3D planning instead of paper
Digital plans created using the 3D design software REVIT helped the STRABAG construction team when setting up the formwork and exactly positioning the shoring towers. Thanks to the three-dimensional plans, it was possible to easily understand even the complex geometry of the pier caps and thus perform the construction work transparently.

It was possible to quickly create and, if required, adapt the 3D plans, allowing the foremen to access the latest versions on mobile devices on-site at all times.

MEVA systems:

• Special formwork
• Mammut 350 wall formwork
• Radius circular formwork
• MEP shoring tower system
• MT 60 shoring tower system

Project:
Motorway bridge on the M6, Hungary

Principal:
Építési és Közlekedési Minisztérium (Ministry of Construction and Transport), Hungary

Contractor:
STRABAG Építő Kft., Budapest, Hungary

Engineering and support:
MEVA Zsalurendszerek Zrt., Budapest, Hungary