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COWI selected as consultants for the Fehmarnbelt crossing 

Photo: Femern Bælt A/S
The project poses major technical challenges because everything about the Fehmarn crossing is larger and more complex than the Great Belt and Øresund Fixed Links.
COWI has signed a contract for the design of a bridge for Fehmarnbelt Fixed Link.

The German/Danish joint venture COWI A/S & OBERMEYER has been selected as consultants to design a fixed bridge crossing between Denmark and Germany across Fehmarnbelt.

The contracts were signed with the customer Femern Bælt A/S on Monday 6 April.

A cable stayed bridge is the client's preferred solution for the Fehmarnbelt project, but the consortium with COWI as lead consultants will also design a suspension bridge option. Another consortium including the Danish consultants Rambøll, British Arup and Dutch TEC will also design a tunnelled solution.

The two consortia will compete to provide the optimal solution in terms of technology, cost and the environment. The next three years of planning and environmental investigations will determine which of the solutions will be implemented. 

Great national importance "We are very proud to have been selected to take part in the third major Danish bridge project after the Great Belt and Øresund Fixed Links. It is always very special to work on projects that are so important to Danes," says Lars Hauge, Director for Bridges in COWI's Business Unit for bridges, tunnels and marine structures. 

COWI will now set up a project office in Lyngby, Denmark, where 40-50 employees from the companies in the consortium will work on the bridge options for the next three years. In addition to the German OBERMEYER, bridge experts from COWI's British subsidiary Flint & Neill, will also contribute along with German Leonhardt, Andrë und Partner and Danish Architects, Dissing+Weiling.

Major technical challenges

"The project poses major technical challenges because everything about the Fehmarn crossing is both larger and more complex than the Great Belt or Øresund Fixed Links. The cable stayed or suspension bridge itself will be the largest combined road and rail crossing in the world, and construction will likely also require some of the largest equipment, such as cranes, yet seen in the world," says Hauge.

In environmental terms, one of the challenges for the project is to ensure that the flow of water is not impeded, so that the delicate salt balance in the Baltic Sea and the Bay of Bothnia is not affected.

"For this, we can use our experience of other bridge designs, where we optimised the structures to minimize the impact on the water flows," says Hauge.

Seven bids for the crossing

Femern Bælt A/S selected the two consortia of consultants from seven international consultancy groups who submitted their bids for the project last December. Four groups bid for the bridge solution, and three for the tunnel option.

Femern Bælt A/S's decided to assess both bridge and tunnelled solutions because, according to Femern Bælt A/S' Managing Director, Peter Lundhus, it wanted to be completely certain that all aspects are taken into consideration when the final decision is made in a few years.

By Henrik Larsen, hkln@cowi.com    
Published: 06.04.2009

Members of the bridge consortium 

Members of the bridge consortium
The consortium with COWI A/S and OBERMEYER Planen + Beraten GmbH includes as sub-consultants: Leonhardt, Andrä und Partner, Beratende Ingenieure VBI (Germany), COWI-owned Flint & Neill (Great Britain) and Dissing+Weitling (Denmark).

LAST UPDATED: 25.02.2010