The Essing Timber Bridge, Germany

The Rhein-Main-Donau Canal, which opened in September 1992, connects the North Sea and the Black Sea by way of the Main and Danube rivers. The new 192 m long timber bridge at Essing, with a maximum free span of 73 m, is the first tension bridge of such size which transforms some 90% of the vertical loads into tension forces, with only 10% acting as bending moments.