Master Builders Solutions® has recently entered into a contract with Femern Link Contractors A/S for the supply of concrete admixtures in connection with the 18-kilometre sunken tunnel currently being constructed under the seaway known as the Fehmarnbelt. The tunnel will provide both train and motorway links that will significantly reduce journey times between Scandinavia and Germany. The journey by car through the tunnel will only take ten minutes, and train journeys from Copenhagen to Hamburg will be reduced to about three hours.
“We are very proud to have been selected as the supplier for this massive project, which will be the world’s longest sunken tunnel, involving the supply of admixtures for use in about three million cubic metres of concrete,” says Finn Møller Sørensen, Segment Manager at Master Builders Solutions Denmark A/S, who has had the project on his radar since 2009. “For this reason, it’s absolutely fantastic to have won this contract, which entails, among other things, the casting of 79 elements – each 217 metres long and weighing about 73,500 tonnes.”
Concrete admixtures – a small but important component
Concrete admixtures make up only a small proportion of any given cubic metre of concrete. However, they help to ensure that the concrete meets the strict and specific requirements of a tunnel with a projected lifetime of 120 years. For this reason, concrete experts at Master Builders Solutions® have been working closely with FLC’s team on, among other things, the development of a new MasterEase® superplasticizer specifically tailored to the Fehmarn project.
“This has been an incredibly exciting process, requiring very close collaboration with both our own European colleagues and FLC’s Danish and international concrete experts,” says Jens Qvist, Technical Manager at Master Builders Solutions Denmark A/S.
The project has required close collaboration between teams from both Denmark and Germany. Jens Qvist, Finn Møller Sørensen, and Sebastian Dittmar are Pictured from the left.
Not our first big project in Denmark – but the biggest.
Master Builders Solutions® has supplied concrete admixtures to almost all the major Danish infrastructure projects in recent years, from the Storebælt Bridge to the Copenhagen Metro. At present, the company is supplying concrete admixtures to the new Storstrøm Bridge. However, since the Fehmarnbelt tunnel is the largest infrastructure project in Denmark’s history, it is naturally also the biggest project that Master Builders Solutions Denmark has been involved in. For this reason, the international collaboration that the Danish team has enjoyed with its colleagues and concrete experts in Germany, among others, as well as with the development division in Treviso in Italy, has been very important.
Master Builders Solutions® expect to supply between 11 and 12 million kilos of concrete admixtures during the project. The admixtures will be delivered from their Danish factory in Rødekro, where it has been necessary to expand both the production and laboratory facilities.
Test casting of one of the enormous tunnel elements in September 2022.
About Master Builders Solutions®
Master Builders Solutions® creates technologies for the construction industry inspiring people to build better. We are active in 36 countries and operate 35 production sites with over 1,600 employees. We develop, produce, and market high-quality chemical admixtures, cement additives, underground technologies, and construction systems to master the challenges of today and tomorrow
About Femern Link Contractors
Femern Link Contractors (FLC) consists of VINCI Constructions Grands Projets (France), Aarsleff (Denmark), Max Bögl Stiftung & CO KG (Germany), BAM Infra B.V (Holland), BAM International B.V (Holland), Wayss & Freytag Ingenieurbau AG (Germany), Solétanche-Bachy International S.A.S (France), CFE SA (Belgium), Dredging International NV (Belgium).