Current construction projects using steel from Dillinger Hütte

Golden Ears Bridge celebrates its opening

One special construction project using steel from Dillingen – the Golden Ears Bridge in Vancouver, Canada – will open on June 16, 2009. For years, traffic jams have hindered the flow of people and goods on both sides of the Fraser River in the eastern part of this city on the Pacific coast. To solve this problem, Canada’s TransLink transportation authority ordered the construction of the six-lane Golden Ears cable-stayed bridge, with a total length of 960 meters. The bridge, which is decorated with statues of eagles, is named for the nests of the eagles ("Golden Aeries") that were characteristic of the region in former times. Dillinger Hütte supplied a total of 6,500 tons of steel for the project. After about 10 years of planning and construction, the Golden Ears Bridge is now being opened to traffic earlier than originally planned, and in time for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver.

The new Porsche Museum: bold architecture

The Porsche Museum in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen opened its doors to the public back in January of this year. Since then, aside from the roughly 80 exhibitions, countless visitors have also admired the extraordinary architecture of the museum, which employed steel from Dillingen in its construction. The highlight of the building designed by the architects Delugan Meissl in Vienna: the main structure of the museum appears to “float,” resting on only three roughly 16-foot high reinforced concrete stilts. Meanwhile, this main structure – known as the “airplane” – weighs about 32,000 tons – an architectural tour de force and the result of complex statistical calculations. Dillinger Hütte supplied about 950 tons of heavy plate for this futuristic building.

The pioneering Alpha Ventus project – clean energy from the North Sea

With the construction of the first German offshore wind farm, known as Alpha Ventus, a third groundbreaking project that employs heavy plate steel supplied by Dillinger Hütte is currently underway. Alpha Ventus is being built about 45 kilometers north of the North Sea island of Borkum. It is considered a test field that will provide insight for the future commercial use of offshore wind power plants to produce clean energy. Construction of the wind farm will include the largest generators to be used industrially to date, with a peak output of 5 megawatts. With the help of special ships, the wind turbines will be mounted on 700-ton steel tripods made from Dillinger steel, stretching up to 148 meters in height. Dillinger Hütte is supplying a total of 12,800 tons of steel for the Alpha Ventus offshore wind farm.