Higher than the Freiburg Cathedral
With a height of 185 m above valley floor, the Kochertal Bridge near Geislingen is the highest bridge in Germany and, after the Viaduc de Millau in France, the second highest in the world. The prestressed concrete structure, which was built under the technical leadership of Wayss & Freytag AG between 1977 and 1979, crosses the A6 motorway between Heilbronn and Nuremberg and is 1,128 m long.
The designers chose a single-cell box as a 31 m wide superstructure for both directions, which was carried out using the cantilever construction method. Two cantilever carriages advanced from a pillar to the middle of the panel and were then transferred to the next pillar head. The short construction period of only 22 months required simultaneous construction from both abutments.
In some places, the ground had to be improved by means of cement injections for the foundation of the pillars in the rugged shell limestone. In other parts, 45 m deep shafts had to be sunk to reach stable ground. The pillars were built using climbing formwork. For stabilisation reasons, the four pillars in the middle had to be fixed to the superstructure, so that in longitudinal direction of the bridge a framework was formed as statical system.