Seiltausch unter Verkehr an der Rheinbrücke Flehe

Replacing stay-cables of the Rhine River crossing Rheinbrücke Flehe, Germany.

The paper reports on the replacement works of nine stay cables of the Rhine River Bridge Flehe, a cable-stayed bridge south of Düsseldorf, Germany. Due to a long service life the stay cables showed some signs of damage and needed to be repaired. Because of foremost damages of nine cables especially open fractures of single wires, they had to be replaced instead. The replacement not only required enormous structural and technical skills, but also engagement of all involved in. This was mainly due to the necessity of keeping the traffic uninterrupted and to prevent any closures of lanes. This administrational demand was successfully mastered. Besides slightly narrowed lanes widths, the bridge's traffic area remained unaffected by this replacement work with traffic able to continue flowing throughout the project.