Concrete shells are aesthetic and economic supporting structures, if properly designed. They can absorb high loads and can span large areas with little material. Unfortunately, high costs for the complicated formwork avoid a wider use in practice. A new shell construction method called Pneumatic Forming of Hardened Concrete (PFHC) was developed by Prof. Benjamin Kromoser and Prof. Johann Kollegger (TU Wien). Within a tight development process numerous material tests, tensile tests, bending tests and two large scale experiments were performed. Now, the Austrian railways (ÖBB) used the construction method to build the deer pass AM2 as concrete shell bridge over the two-rail track Koralmbahn in Carinthia in Austria. At first a test shell, which now serves as event canopy (called Manta), was built with the plan dimensions 26.5 x 19.1 m and a height of 4.2 m. Directly after that the main supporting structure, the shell bridge, was built (plan dimensions 36.2 x 38.7 m, height 8.1 m).
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2018 Journal article
** Kromoser, B; Kollegger, J Conceptual design, geometry optimization and calculation of the concrete shell bridge AM2 built with PFHC. BETON- STAHLBETONBAU. 2018; 113(2): 88-95. WoS FullText FullText_BOKU
** Kromoser, B; Kollegger, J; Kari, H; Gradenegger, K; Ganster, M Practical Application of an innovative concrete shell construction method: Construction of the deer pass AM2 by use of PFHC. BETON- STAHLBETONBAU. 2018; 113(3): 222-232. WoS
2017 Article in conference proceedings
Kromoser, B.; Kollegger, J.: (2017): Construction of a thin walled concrete shell event canopy. [CCC Tokaj, Tokaj, 31.08. - 1.09.2017]
Kromoser, B.; Kollegger, J.: (2017): How to inflate a hardened concrete shell with a weight of 80 t. [IASS Annual Symposium 2017 , Hamburg, 25. - 28. September 2017] Schmitt, C.; Kromoser, B.; Harmening, C.; Falkner, J.; Neuner, H.-B.; Kollegger, J.: (2017): Geodetic surface based methods for applications in civil engineering . [7th International Conference on Engineering Surveying, Lissabon, 18. - 20.10.2017] In: A. Kopáčik et al. (Hrg.), Ingeo 2017, Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Engineering Surveying