Frankfurt Tower

The major airport at Frankfurt/Main is provided with a new radar tower

While the aircraft continues to become an even clearer favourite choice for travel and transport, all the time there are people working in the background to ensure the safety of air transport into the future as well.

Frankfurt/Main (Hessen, Germany):

Many a new building throws its shadow way in front of it: on the airport at Frankfurt/Main a new hangar is being built for the super-jumbo Airbus A-380. This is designed to be so tall that it will intrude on the present radar towers' field of view, and might well interfere with their functioning properly. To help obviate this problem there is now a new radar tower, which is not only closer to the action but is also higher than all the others. 

Wayss & Freytag Ingenieurbau AG (Central Section, Frankfurt) was awarded the contract in October 2005 by the German flight safety service DFS Deutsche Flugsicherung GmbH (Frankfurt) to erect the radar tower in the vicinity of Cargo City Süd within the Fraport area so that it would be ready for operation in autumn 2006. All sections of the construction are concentric and circular. The actual column of the tower is 5 metres (almost 16' 5") in diameter, and is 54.05 metres (177' 3") high. The top of the tower for the radar antenna array is 7 metres high and its diameter is also 7 metres (almost 23 "). On top of this, there is a steel grid platform of 13.50 metres diameter (44' 3 1/2"). Including the radar installation, the tower is approximately 66 metres high (216' 6").

The column of the tower was constructed with a company-owned special torsion-resistant formwork. There is a spiral staircase installed within it. The formwork had to be lined because concreting was continued through the frosty winter with fast-setting B45 C35/45. With increasing height, so the work was subject to increasingly-windy conditions and to special safety precautions to be applied as the height increased. Responsibility for planning and delivery of this formwork lay with W+F SRS (Schalungs- und Rüstungs-Service) - Formwork and Fittings Service - of Plochingen.

The complicated installation pod was constructed using the adjustable-radius Trapezoidal Girder Formwork (TTR) by PASCHAL; a total of 260 m² of formwork segment already rounded and fitted was delivered to the building site. As qualified engineer and building supervisor Thomas Klopsch of Wayss & Freytag says: "We looked for the most economical and technically the best-perfected solution. We found the TRR also thoroughly convincing in its fitting and radius accuracy. The way it works is easy to understand and well thought out; overall, it meets every single one of our expectations."

The tower itself stands on a floor-slab measuring 10 metres (32' 9 3/4") in diameter. The flat foundation with its highly-concentrated load stands on a sandy soil of poor load-bearing capacity, which was reinforced with 44 x 3 metre vibration-driven piles. For the tower alone 250 m³ of concrete and 27 tonnes of reinforcing steel were used. 
When all was complete, there was a deviation of barely 2 to 3 mm over the full height: proof of the perfect overall concept.