The motorway interchange, north-west of the city of Memmingen, connects motorways A96 and A7. To optimise the capacity of the overstressed interchange, several construction measures are being undertaken. The existing lanes are widened, and additional lanes are added. The two new lanes of A96 branching off towards Ulm, required a noise barrier to shield the town of Buxheim from noise emissions.
The noise barrier reaches from Buxtal Bridge via a motorway embankment over Memminger Landstraße and ends east of the railway line Leutkirch-Memmingen. At the eastern part between the two bridges, A96 was widened into the slop of the existing motorway embankment. To hold the additional lane, the lower part of the noise barrier was implemented as a retaining wall. The area above the railways is supported by a torsion girder designed next to the existing bridge.
The noise barrier consist of 4 and 7-metre high sections. The 7-metre high wall area is divided into two parts to optically elongate it. Its lower part as well as the 4-metre high section is made of concrete elements with cellular concrete facing formwork. Wide aluminium elements with a horizontally undulating structure form the upper part. The upper elements have a light colour, the lower ones are slightly darker grey. On the bridges, the lower concrete elements are replaced by glass to give traffic participants an open view to the outside and to show the unaltered geometry of the bridges’ contours.
The design principle of the installation intends the upper noise barrier’s part to overlap over the lower part where the wall height changes. The abrupt change in height can be perceptively elongated, the transitions seem calmer and more harmonious. The upper aluminium wall pushes over the beginning glass elements of Buxtal Bridge as well as over the concrete elements that follow the glass elements of the central underpass at the eastern end. An optical cantilever of the upper opaque wall strip above the transparent area appears at the abutments.
The noise barriers were completed at the end of 2022. Completion of the entire project at motorway interchange Memmingen is planned for the end of 2023.
Noise barrier length: 784 m
Noise barrier nominal height: 4.00 and. 7.00 m
Noise barrier area: 4,644 m²
Rammed and bored pile foundation; concrete, wide aluminium and glass elements inserted between steel pillars
