Skip to main content

Raised dual carriageway reduces congestion

A new raised dual carriageway to bypass the historic centre of the City of Wroclaw in south-east Poland will give access to the new Miejski Stadium in time for its role in the UEFA Euro 2012 football finals.
February 21, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
Tensar's Tensartech retaining wall solution helped construct the Wroclaw bypass utilizing reinforced soil technology compromising uniaxial geogrid layered within aggregate(see inset)
A new raised dual carriageway to bypass the historic centre of the City of Wroclaw in south-east Poland will give access to the new Miejski Stadium in time for its role in the UEFA Euro 2012 football finals.

Wroclaw Municipality and its main contractor, 2296 Skanska, chose the 340 Tensar Tensartech TW1 structural and retaining walls solution for the 5km bypass project because of its low material costs and rapid construction, as well as its aesthetic appearance and versatility in adapting to site requirements.

Traffic conditions in Wroclaw are frequently very congested due to the narrow streets of the centre, and it can take two hours or more to transverse the city, located on a major connecting route across southern Poland.

Started in 2008, the new bypass route is elevated on embankments up to 11m high in order to cross the River Oder, the railway and local roads: this will carry through traffic and football fans away from the city centre.

A total of 19 separate Tensartech walls were built for the embankment, with ten incorporated into bridge abutments and flyovers, and construction will be completed in 2011.

Jacek Kawalec of Tensar International, who provided Tensar application advice, said: “Three different techniques were considered for the project. Two involved heavy concrete blocks or large cast concrete panels. Both would have been too costly and time-consuming to construct, and their appearance would have been unsympathetic to the historic architecture.

“The Tensartech TW1 system is fairly new in Poland, and uses split-face blocks produced locally to Tensar’s exacting standards. In total, the 19 walls of TW1 amounted to 2km in length, supplemented by around 300m of gabion walling, over 12,000m2 of wall in total, designed by Drotest.”

The ground over which the embankments were built comprises compacted sands and firm-plastic loams with few load-bearing problems. The locally-sourced mineral aggregate fill was layered with Tensar uniaxial geogrid to form mechanically stabilised soil layers within the embankments, fastened to the dry laid TW1 blocks by Tensar’s polymer key.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Increasing demand for geosynthetics reinforcement
    April 16, 2012
    Demand for geosynthetics in the United States alone is projected to increase 4.4% per year through to 2010 to more than 727 million m². Geosynthetics, used worldwide in the highway sector for strengthening, include geotextiles, geomembranes, geonets, geogrids, geosynthetic clay liners, preformed geocomposites, geocells and geofoams. The US advances will be fuelled by a recovery in nonbuilding construction. Additionally, geosynthetics will continue to increase their use in a wider range of applications
  • Tensar International to open new plant in Russia by January 2014
    November 20, 2012
    Tensar International is building a manufacturing plant in Russia. Tensar is the majority shareholder in the joint venture, with remaining investment coming from Russian partners. Don Meltzer, chief executive of US parent company, Tensar Corporation; and Bob Vevoda, chief operating officer and president of Tensar International; met with their Russian JV partners in London earlier this month to finalise the funding and construction schedule.
  • 'Soft' option gets results
    February 8, 2012
    Soft engineering techniques, used to prevent soil erosion and stabilise steep cuts and embankments, have allowed engineers to successfully widen the M1 motorway in the UK. Over the 50km length of the work (25km northbound, 25km southbound) on a busy section of the motorway near the city of Nottingham, a total of 48km of slopes had to be modified, split roughly between cutting and embankment. The UK Highways Agency requirements for the work meant that wholesale widening of the corridor was not possible: the
  • Poland's ambitious highway construction plans
    July 10, 2012
    The European football championships are among a number of things pushing Poland's ambitious highway building programme. Patrick Smith reports. Poland is planning to spend a colossal €4.57 billion on road projects in 2009, a 35% increase over the previous year. T