display
Herne (dpa / lnw) - A stress test on the closed, ailing A43 bridge near Herne began on Saturday with several trucks loaded with gravel.
According to a spokesman for the responsible motorway company, the investigations should go on until the afternoon.
The endurance test is intended to clarify which vehicles will be allowed to roll over the bridge in the future.
For a month now, the route between the Herne and Recklinghausen motorway junctions has only been approved for vehicles lighter than 3.5 tons.
In the worst case, depending on the results of the tests, the bridge must be closed to all traffic until a new building has been built.
In order to get an exact picture of the condition of the bridge, the stress test takes place under controlled conditions.
For this purpose, trucks loaded with gravel were rolled onto the bridge on Saturday and placed in various positions.
Sensors installed in the weeks before collect data and can show the smallest deviations in a model.
display
More tests will take place the following weekend to complete the picture.
In both cases, the route must remain closed for the entire weekend from Friday evening, announced the Autobahn GmbH.
Evaluable results of the tests and measurements will not be available until the end of June, it said.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210515-99-607425 / 2