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Maurer Söhne:
Innovations in Steel
The Maurer Söhne GmbH - Co. KG success story is based on
steel. Founded in 1876, the Munich-based company has been
one of the leading companies in the three business sectors of
structural steelwork, structural protection systems and amusement
rides for many years, both nationally and internationally.
Two of the main reasons for its success are its employees’
expertise and the quality of its products – designed, developed,
produced and assembled entirely by Maurer Söhne.
“Innovations in steel”, the company-motto, also symbolizes
the Maurer Söhne-philosophy, which provides the basis for its
excellent position on the market.
Whilst the Maurer Söhne structural steelwork (bridge, building
and stack construction) and amusement rides (e.g. roller coasters)
divisions carry out complete building construction projects
– from planning to assembly – the structural protection systems
division deals with safety components, an essential aspect for
major but also minor projects. Decades of experience in bridge
construction are the main reason for the company’s unique
expertise which repeatedly produces excellent solutions. Since
the structure of non-rigid constructions, particularly for earthquake
and vibration protection, is similar to that of bridges, a
number of years ago Maurer Söhne extended its product range
of protection systems specifi cally to this sector.
Structural protection systems
Maurer Söhne focuses on 5 product groups for structural protection
systems:
• Expansion joints
• Structural bearings
• Seismic devices
• Vibration absorbers
• Structural monitoring
Maurer Söhne is the leading global manufacturer on these
markets. The high export fi gures resulting from its market position
also include spectacular projects carried out around the
world, making the structural protection systems division the
most important in the company. Maurer Söhne products can
be found e.g. in the “Allianz Arena”, the new Munich soccer
stadium; in the roof construction of the “Lehrter Bahnhof”, the
new Berlin main railway station; on the Tejo bridge in Lisbon;
and on a number of other major bridges in Europe, Asia and
North and South America; in the tracks of French and Spanish
high-speed trains TGV and AVE, respectively; and in the new
Acropolis museum and elaborate cultural building of fi ne arts
and literature currently being built by the Onassis Group in
Athens.
Case Studies
CADFEM GmbH INFOPLANER 2/2005
Viaduc de
Millau, France.
The world’s tallest road bridge: Viaduc de Millau
A couple of months ago, the journey from Paris to Montpellier
in southern France became a 100 km shorter. The Millau
Bridge, designed by Sir Norman Foster, has been built in the
south of the Massif Central. Being a 2,460-meter long, cablestayed,
masted structure with a total height of 343 meters said
structure is a world record, and taller even than the Eiffel tower.
It connects the motorway networks of France and Spain, opening
up a direct route from Paris to Barcelona.
Maurer Söhne planned, developed, produced and assembled
expansion joints, bridge bearings, and ILM bearings for the
incremental launching of the road sections of the century’s
most spectacular construction.
Expansion joints, i.e. the transitional structures between the
different road sections of the bridge are used to compensate
for deformations caused by temperature differences and other
kinds of strains. They are waterproof, thus protecting underlying
constructions and helping to take off traffi c loads both
safely and permanently. Maurer Modular Joints make it possible
to compensate for differences of a maximum 120 cm in
length on the bridge. In other cases, solutions have been implemented
to guarantee movement capacities of over 2m in all
horizontal directions. Moreover, new structural versions have
been utilized to optimize noise behaviour when vehicles are traveling
over the bridge, as well as a completely new technique
with a rated breakpoint which, in case of major vibrations such
as severe earthquakes, guarantee the bridge can be restored
and used again quickly.
There were three options for the bridge bearings with vertical
loads of up to 120,000 kN i.e. the classic pot bearing, the
currently common elastomeric bearing, and a sliding or spherical
bearing. Project
management decided
to use a special type
of spherical bearing,
the MSM ® sliding
bearing, requiring
minimum space, a
feature requested by
the customer. MSM
stands for Maurer Sliding
Material, a new
material developed
expansion joints
by Maurer Söhne. It