The climbing formwork revolutionized chimney construction
In 1929, once these could be used economically, chimney construction was revolutionised by the use of climbing forms. Already during the first year Wayss & Freytag built four of such monolithic chimneys, among others for Schwandorf power station.
Climbing forms have significant advantages in the construction of conical reinforced concrete shafts compared to the conventionally built chimney:
- The formwork is extremely flexible with regard to different shaft diameters at the top and bottom.
- There is no limit for the chimney height.
- The concrete surface has a dense structure.
- Assembly parts can be built in with utmost precision.
- Chimney works can be interrupted, if necessary.
The formwork which was used by W&F went on to be used successfully for 50 years. During this period Wayss & Freytag successfully built more than 160 chimneys with a height of up to 235 m with this system as well as telecommunication towers in Stuttgart, Dortmund, Hamburg, Koblenz, Frankfurt und Nuremberg and numerous smaller standard telecommunication towers for Deutsche Bundespost (German Federal Mail).