Construction—EMEA—Austria—Foundations
The new Eibsee Gondola on the Zugspitze Mountain:
DYWIDAG Systems for Germany’s highest Jobsite
On the highest jobsite in Germany, the Zugspitze Mountain, the new Eibsee cableway is being built parallel to the existing
cableway and will ultimately replace the existing system that was built in 1963. With a capacity of 120 people per gondola,
the pendulum cableway will be one of the world’s largest with a capacity that is three times that of the existing system.
The new, nearly 4.5km long cable car is being
built with only one instead of two support
towers. At a height of 127m, the support tower
is the world’s tallest, and the cableway also
has the world’s longest free span covering
3,213m.
Work is being carried out while the existing
cable car is still in operation, and the project
is scheduled for completion in 2017. A new
ropeway for material transport was built to
transport the required construction materials
for the new mountain terminal that is located
at an elevation of 2,950m. The material is
lifted into the different working panels using an
erection crane.
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For the new mountain station, approximately
1,000m³ of rock had to be removed. In total,
1,200m³ of concrete, 500t of steel and
330t of reinforcing steel are required for
this building. The new summit station was
designed with a cantilever that juts out by 30m.
For this purpose, a tieback structure with two
compression and two tension foundations was
required that were tied back into the rock up to
16m deep using anchors.
To stabilize the foundation in the mountain
terminal, 38 uncoated and double corrosion
protected, 32-63.5mm Ø, 6-11m long
GEWI ® Soil Nails were used. In an additional
step, 34 permanent, 12 strand, Type SUSPA
Systems Strand Anchors were installed.
These systems serve to anchor the foundation
for the 30m cantilever of the mountain
station and were installed vertically into the
foundation. This way, the cantilevering building
is tied back and stabilized.
DSI also supplied 8 permanent 40 WR, 8-14m
long DYWIDAG Anchors and 55 permanent,
40mm Ø, 8-14m long GEWI ® Anchors.
The DSI scope also included 700m of 28, 32
and 40mm Ø, 2.5-6m long GEWI ® Bars and
300m of fabric tubes for anchor encasement.