The first railroad bridge in Germany made of ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) has gone into operation on Bavaria’s Tegernsee-Bahn railroad route near Gmund. (Image: U. Benz / TUM)
The first railroad bridge in Germany made of ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) has gone into operation on Bavaria's Tegernsee-Bahn railroad route near Gmund. The innovative high-performance concrete made it possible to build a particularly thin bridge. Engineers from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) planned the project and provided scientific supervision. It is almost as resilient as steel, has a long service life and makes especially thin structures possible: Ultra-high performance concrete, which is still only rarely used in Germany in spite of its positive properties. "This is a new material which behaves differently from conventional concrete," explains Prof. Oliver Fischer of the TUM Chair of Concrete and Masonry Structures. "Germany has yet to introduce a set of regulations for its use." The material has been the subject of international research for years - including at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). The special thing about it: Its composition makes the material exceptionally dense, with almost no internal cavities that can be penetrated by moisture or salts which could damage the material.
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