Schneidenlagerung von Eisenbahnbrücken – Spundwände als Brückenwiderlager

Knife-edge bearing of railway bridges on steel sheet pilings. Generally, the infrastructure of railway systems in Austria is considered as adequate. The main issue is the renewal or maintenance of existing structures. Especially railway bridges are planned as substitutional reconstructions of existing routes. Usually, such interventions at existing systems have a significant impact on the rail traffic, leading to relevant economic forfeits in most cases. For this reason it is a recurring challenge for planners of such substitutional reconstructions to minimize the restrictions for the railway traffic. Supported by the ÖBB and in collaboration with the Institute of Structural Concrete of the TU Graz, the planning office Schimetta Consult ZT GmbH investigated on an alternative approach to this problem where the temporary steel sheet pilings are integrated to the reinforced concrete superstructure as permanent structural members. The investigations are limited to the feasibility study of knife-edge bearing of small railway bridges on steel sheet pilings. It was shown that dealing with such small bridges the implementation of this method represents a very interesting alternative to the conventional ones.