Kwidzyn Bridge Poland
Construction of Europes longest extradosed bridge spans
The total length of the bridge is 808m, including two main spans each of 204m.
Kwidzyn Bridge crosses the Vistula
River in northern Poland about
100km south of Gdansk.
The old wooden bridge was
dismantled around 1950 and for
more than 60 years the Vistula was
left with the longest section (80km)
of Polish river without any bridges.
With the new bridge, Kwidzyn
gained a connection to the recently
finished A1 highway between
Gdansk and Lodz.
The bridge was built for the
General Directorate for National
Roads & Highways by a main
contractor joint venture of Budimex
and Ferrovial to a design by
Transprojekt Gdansk.
Scope of works performed
Supply and installation of the VSL
stay cable system
Supply of VSL Saddles
The bridge has a total length of 808m, VSLs scope of work included the
made up of two 204m-long main supply of materials and the
spans flanked by spans of 130m installation and adjustment of the
and 70m at each side. The three stay cable system.
central pylons, which stand 17m Preparatory works began in
above deck level, support an January 2013 and stay installation
extradosed system made up of sets started the next month.
of nine cables in semi-harp
arrangements. Construction of the
main bridge started in October 2010.
Part of the bridge deck was built using
a movable scaffolding system (MSS);
both edge beams together with their
anchor zones were then cast from
suspended scaffolding.
VSL was awarded the project
thanks to its innovative VSL SSI2000
Saddle system, which has been
tested at full scale in accordance
with fib 30 requirements. The stressing was carried out using a
computer-controlled automatic stressing
Stay cable installation started
system that took account of the structures
immediately after concreting of
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characteristics to ensure stress uniformity
the deck anchor zones. after the last strand was installed.
Stays were installed and stressed OWNER
using the computerised VSL General Directorate for National Roads
Automatic Monostrand Stressing & Motorways
(AMS) system to ensure
ENGINEER
equalisation of forces in the strands ZBM Inwestor Zastpczy
and to speed up stressing time.
DESIGNER
To keep to the very tight schedule, Transprojekt Gdask
the client asked VSL to shorten the PHOTO
MAIN CONTRACTOR
installation time from the original Ferrovial/Budimex
three months in summer to two
months during the winter. VSL ENTITY
VSL took on this challenge and VSL Polska
installed the 610t of stays (108 stays DATE
in 54 saddles) in even less time VSL SSI 6-75 saddles have been used 2013
than the two-month target. for the project.

When the Kwidzyn Bridge opened

to traffic on 26 July 2013 it became
Europes longest extradosed bridge
and also the first bridge in Poland
to feature the innovative VSL
SSI2000 Saddles.

Key numbers
Maximum span: 204m
Pylon height: 17m above deck
Weight of stays: 610t
Anchors: 108 x DR 6-75
Saddles: 54 x SSI2000 6-75
Length of HDPE ducts:6,200m
(in RAL3000 red)
Lengths of stays: 19m to 97m
Thanks to the red colour of the stay cable ducts, the landmark bridge is visible from afar.

PHOTO
The experienced team from VSL installed all the stay cables and tendons in less than two months despite the harsh weather conditions.
Edited 2012

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www.vsl.com