Don't Complain – Act!

Editorial from Beton- und Stahlbetonbau 2/2011

Dr.-Ing. Karl Morgen

For years now, German engineers − and especially designers − have been complained about the flood of codes brought upon them. Professional associations have finally taken up this justified criticism. Correspondingly, initiatives to "professionalize" the "prestandardization" work have been created.

Revision of the DAfStb Guideline on Concrete Repairs - Status Update

Download the article from Beton- und Stahlbetonbau 06/2011.

Several working groups involving interested circles are working on a revision of the guideline "Protection and Repair of Concrete Members" (Concrete Repair Guideline) of the Deutscher Ausschuss für Stahlbeton e.V. (DAfStb). The following report provides an early update on which direction the revision and update of the guideline is planned to take.

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Beton- und Stahlbetonbau (Concrete and Reinforced Concrete Structures), is the journal for all aspects of plain, reinforced and prestressed concrete construction.

PORR to build two tunnels for Stuttgart 21

Deutsche Bahn awarded the first tunnelling contracts on 30 July 2011 for Stuttgart 21 to a joint venture lead by the PORR Group. After considering all competitive factors that joint venture was chosen out of four building consortiums bid for the European-wide tender. With tender packages PFA 1.2. and PFA 1.6a (Filder Tunnel and Ober-/Untertürkheim Tunnels) now having been awarded around a quarter of the tenders for this railway project have been completed. Deutsche Bahn claims to still be within the planned budget.

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Bauphysik (Building Physics), the journal for thermal and sound insulation, moisture control and fire protection in the civil and structural engineering sectors.

Construction and finance contract for the new trunk line in Munich

Representatives of the Bavarian state government and German Railways DB AG signed the construction and finance contract for the second S-Bahn urban railway trunk line in Munich on 8 April 2011. The contract regulates the details of the financing of the project to build the second trunk line.

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Bautechnik (Structural Engineering), the journal for the entire civil and structural engineering sector.

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Wind power plants: Planning procedure using the example of a system with savonius rotor

Download the article from Bautechnik 05/2011.

Christoph A. Beecken, Björn Knull

Wind energy gained in importance for electric power supply due to financial incentives for wind turbine generators (WTG) as politically favoured renewable energy source and the resulting technical further development. Building a relevant landscape element, the approvability of the structure plays a decisive role in planning and design of WTG.

Editorial: Geomechanics and Tunnelling 3/2011

Wulf Schubert

Tunnelling in weak ground and with high overburden is a particular challenge. The problems start with the investigation, as it is definitely no easy task to establish a realistic geological model from the scarce information available.

Experience of tunnel construction in weak ground

Download the article from Geomechanics and Tunnelling 03/2011.

Wulf Schubert

A whole range of problems are generally associated with the construction of tunnels in weak ground and under high overburden. Among those are large displacements, wide variation of stresses and strains, and sudden water ingress, to name just a few.